0 Analyst Says PKS Scandal ‘Damages All Religious Parties’

The graft case that dragged down a senior Prosperous Justice Party official has hurt the party’s image and will affect its vote in the 2014 election, analysts say. Jeiry Sumampow, the coordinator of clean elections advocate the Indonesian Voters Committee (Tepi), said that the meat quota corruption scandal involving Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, the former head of the party known as PKS, would benefit nationalist parties at the expense of religious parties. “The nationalist parties will be the ones to benefit. 

New parties like NasDem [the National Democratic Party] will also benefit because, relatively, it has few past sins. The public will appreciate new parties,” Jeiry said in Jakarta on Monday. He predicted that religiously inclined voters would move toward NasDem, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party and the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra). “Parties like PDI-P will also benefit a lot because in this period PDI-P has been consistent in playing its part as an opposition party. 

Golkar could also benefit or even Gerindra, which doesn’t have a serious problem relating to corruption,” he said. He added that religious-based parties were already experiencing a decline before the PKS corruption allegations emerged. “Religious-based parties will decline further. If a party with a religious-based ideology was caught committing graft, that is a major blow, it will cause confidence to spiral down,” he said. He added that religious subsections of mainstream political parties would not play a significant role in the election result. 

“Parties’ wings are just one method to increase support. But I think the public will look at the parties. Although there are wings in the parties, there are no guarantee that supporters of the party’s wing would vote for the party,” he said. He added that the voters were savvier now than in the past. “A person’s fanaticism towards a mass organization is different to that of a [political] party,” he said. Two recent opinion polls predicted that none of the major Islamic political parties would be among the top five parties in the 2014 legislative election. 

An Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) poll reported last month offered a pessimistic outlook for PKS, as well as the National Awakening Party (PKB), the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP), all members of the current ruling coalition. The poll found that none of the four parties would garner more than 5 percent of the vote, and Islamic parties collectively would gather only 21 percent of the popular vote. Secular-focused Golkar, PDI-P and the Democratic Party topped the survey.

source : the jakarta globe