Jakarta – The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said on Friday its victories in two recent gubernatorial elections had boosted its confidence amid predictions it was losing public support following the arrest of its former top leader on graft charges.
Senior PKS politician Hidayat Nurwahid said that most political pundits had been proven wrong when they said the Islamic party's electability rate would decline significantly after its former chairman, Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in January.
"It turns out it was all just nonsense. It was just analysis that is true theoretically but is not based on the political reality in the field," Hidayat said.
The PKS has claimed victory in the North Sumatra election, which was held on Thursday.
According to several quick counts the PKS-backed candidate, Gatot Pujo Nugroho won between 32 and 33 percent of the vote, some 6 percent more than his strongest rival Effendi Simbolon, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) candidate who garnered around 26 percent. According to the regulations, a candidate needs to secure more than 30 percent of the vote to win an election.
In West Java, the local poll body has declared Ahmad Heryawan governor-elect of the country's most populous province. Aher and his running mate, Deddy Mizwar, gained 32.39 percent of the votes, followed bv Rieke Diah Pitaloka and Teten Masduki with 28.41 percent and Dede Yusuf and Lex Laksamana with 25.24 percent. Rieke and Teten were backed by the PDI-P, while Dede and Lex were backed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.
Rieke has rejected the decision and will bring the dispute to the Constitutional Court.
Hidayat said the party managed to mobilize its core supporters to get the vote out despite media reports on corrupt practices in the national beef import program that has implicated several PKS politicians.
Ahmad Fathanah, the main suspect in the beef graft case, is reportedly Luthfi's close aide. The case also took place within the Agriculture Ministry, which is now led by PKS politician Suswono. The KPK has also slapped a travel ban on Ridwan Hakim, the fourth son of the party's chief patron, Hilmi Aminuddin. KPK investigators have questioned him as a witness in the case.
"[Our victory] shows that the public still trusts the PKS and its members. We will work harder and more effectively to show the public that we deserve their trust," the former chairman of the People's Consultative Council said.
PKS chairman Anis Matta claimed that North Sumatra resembled Indonesia in a way that its people were religiously and culturally diverse. The party's victory, he said, had given hope for a strong showing in the 2014 polls. "This is our victory in a plural society," he said.
An analyst, however, attributed Gatot's victory to his ethnicity and the fact that he was the incumbent. "The majority of votes won by Gatot didn't come from PKS voters but rather because people know he has a Javanese background," lecturer Faisal Mahrawa of North Sumatra University said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the PDI-P said it would evaluate the party's performance after being beaten consecutively by the PKS in two local elections. In North Sumatra and West Java, the party brought in its political big guns during the campaigns, including party chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri and Jakarta Governor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. The fact Jokowi is currently the most popular governor in the country apparently failed to help Rieke and Effendi win the elections.
PKS politicians have scoffed at the PDI-P for failing to exploit Jokowi's popularity. "We are not afraid of Jokowi," PKS executive Yudi Widiana said.