The Justice Party (PK), a small but vocal Islamic political party officially merged into another Islamic party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) in a move that would enable its candidates to take part in the 2004 general elections.

The merger into the PKS was announced by PK Chairman Hidayat Nurwahid during a rally of about 5,000 members and supporters of both parties in Jakarta's National Monument Square.

"We cannot just stop because of a mere electoral treshold ... we should continue to step forward," Nurwahid told the crowd, explaining the reasons for the merger. "We do not feel that we have made a bad choice ... they are our continuity, they are our younger generation," Nurwahid said, adding that both PK and PKS shared the same committment regarding "Islam, Humanitarianism and justice."

PK is one of the many small Indonesian political parties that would not be able to take part in the 2004 elections under a new law on political parties, which set eligibility at two percent of the votes in the previous elections. PK obtained 1,436,565 votes, or 1.36 percent of the total but has six seats at the 500-seat parliament following a vote-sharing accord with eight other parties in the last elections. PKS is a new party created last year.

Both parties have been behind many of the anti-US and anti-war protests that have taken place almost daily in several cities across Indonesia since the US-led invasion of Iraq.