Jakarta – Nahdlatul Ulama executive council (PBNU) chair, Slamet Effendi Yusuf, said that the NU would remain neutral in the upcoming presidential election on July 9 and that NU members were allowed to vote for either ticket.

"So if there are claims that the NU supports a candidate or a political party, they are sorely mistaken," Slamet said at a discussion on Islam and the election in Jakarta on Saturday, as reported by kompas.com.

He said that the NU, the country's largest Muslim organization, had stayed out of politics since a conference in Situbondo, East Java, in 1984. Slamet added that he did not want the 2014 presidential elections to taint this decision.

"If there are Muslim preachers joining the Prabowo [Subianto] camp or the Jokowi [Joko Widodo] camp then it is their personal decision and they just happen to be NU members," he said.

Furthermore, Slamet urged NU members to base their voting decision on who they believed would be a democratic leader with a virtuous character and was willing to secure the sovereignty of the country.

Finally, he said that he was sure that the NU members would choose a leader that would be beneficial to society. (fss)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/06/28/nu-remain-neutral-during-elections.html