Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Indonesian Muslim voters uncertain of parties' economic policies are more likely to vote for Islamic parties than Pancasila-based nationalist ones, a research says.

The research findings, titled Testing Political Islam's Economic Advantage: The Case of Indonesia, was conducted jointly by Thomas B. Pepinsky of Cornell University, R. William Lidle of Ohio State University, and the Indonesian Survey Institute.

"We found that Islamic parties offering good policies are less popular than Pancasila-based parties offering the same, while Islamic parties offering bad economic policies are equally as popular as Pancasila-based ones offering the same," Pepinsky said Thursday in Jakarta.

"But respondents were significantly more likely to support an Islamic party than a Pancasila-based party under conditions of economic policy uncertainty," Pepinsky said.

The research involved 2,548 respondents, surveyed in May 2008.

Experts believe that under conditions of economic hardship, Islamic parties and social movements in secular Muslim countries have an inherent power to attract voters that non-Islamic parties and movements simply do not have.

This phenomena is referred to as "political Islam's economic advantage". However, despite its "economic advantage," Islamic ideology has proven politically unsaleable in heterogeneous Indonesia – where the predominantly Muslim population prefers good economic policies over anything else.

The research verifies this in concluding that in Indonesia the "economic advantage" is real, but is critically circumscribed by parties' economic platforms and voters' knowledge about them.

While Pancasila-based parties have been proven much more popular, the survey shows that 56 percent of Muslim respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that national laws must be consistent with Islamic law. Moreover, 83 percent of respondents said they would support Islamic parties promoting "remarkable" economic policies.

Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Sunny Tanuwidjaja said the findings show that religion still plays a pivotal role in Indonesian politics. "The clearer their economic platforms, the more the Islamic parties stand to gain, as long as they can present their economic platforms 'remarkably'."