Samarinda – Muslims should not fear making Islam their political ideology, United Development Party (PPP) chairman and Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali says.

He said during a regional conference in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, on Sunday that the PPP's members should not have any doubts about making Islam their ideology for the way they thought and as a method to advance the nation, Antara news agency reported.

Suryadharma shrugged off survey results concluding that parties that used a religion as their ideology were less likely to win voters, saying the surveys were made to bring down Islamic parties.