Ahalla Tsauro & Fakhridho Susilo – Observers of the Indonesian 2024 presidential race recently witnessed a surprising turn of events. After a period of relative silence on the matter, presidential hopeful Anies Baswedan finally declared his choice of running mate. To the astonishment of many, it was none other than Muhaimin Iskandar, the chairman of National Awakening Party (PKB), a member of the coalition of parties that had until that point supported Prabowo Subianto's presidential bid.
The sudden political marriage of Anies and Muhaimin – brokered by Nasdem Party chairman Surya Paloh – sparked outrage within Anies' own coalition. The Demokrat Party – whose chairman, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, had been seen as the strongest candidate for Anies' running mate, immediately declared their departure from the coalition. Demokrat grassroot cadres expressed their dissatisfaction by dismantling party's banners and campaign materials and deleting postings on social media featuring Anies. Even the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), another member of Anies' political coalition, was deliberately absent during the declaration of the Anies-Muhaimin ticket, as well as the first post-declaration coalition meeting, implying their dissatisfaction.
The rise of Muhaimin to the forefront of presidential race fuelled dissent not only among the competing coalition of parties, but also internally within Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the Islamic mass organisation PKB is closely associated with. As the largest Muslim organisation in Indonesia, the votes of NU grassroots followers – or nahdliyin – have always been highly prized, and even considered a decisive factor in securing victory in presidential elections. Since Indonesia's first direct presidential election in 2004, NU higher-ups like Hasyim Muzadi and Salahuddin Wahid have contested as vice presidential candidates. Most recently, Jokowi's victory in the 2019 presidential election has widely been credited to the selection of Ma'ruf Amin, a senior NU kyai (religious scholar) as his running mate, which allowed him to reap the votes of nahdliyin.
However, the declaration of the Anies-Muhaimin ticket brought into light existing fissures within the nahdliyin community – over NU's ideological orientation, its involvement in electoral politics and its relationship with PKB, and the role of Muhaimin within its political and religious milieu. In the absence of the distinctive political conditions that unified NU behind Jokowi and Ma'ruf Amin in 2019, the political role of NU and its followers in the 2024 elections will be the subject of intense contestation.
Factionalism and dissent within NU
Ideological concerns have been at the forefront of many objections to Muhaimin's partnership with Anies. Ever since Anies successfully courted the support of hardline Muslim groups during his ascendancy to the governorship of Jakarta in 2017, he has had a conservative image which goes against the values of moderation, openness, and tolerance highly esteemed by nahdliyin.
As such, Anies' partnership with Muhaimin – someone expected to epitomise and advocate NU values – has been seen as ideologically incompatible by some elements of the nahdliyin. This is not to mention that Anies is also supported by the conservative PKS – which, with its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired tarbiyah movement, is ideologically different to NU. Hence it is not surprising that there were many nahdliyin who hoped that PKS would exit Anies' coalition after the declaration, as Muhaimin himself admitted in a recent interview.
These ideological concerns arise in the context of a continuing debate within NU communities about the organisation's political role and its relationship with PKB. At the grassroots level, and especially on social media, tensions surrounding Muhaimin's nomination have been reflected in a split between those who oppose the nomination on the grounds of maintaining the "neutrality" of NU as a social organisation and those who believe that the political identity of PKB is inseparable from NU's socio-ideological milieu.
These tensions surfaced immediately after kyai Yahya Cholil Staquf, the chairman of the executive leadership board of NU at the national level (PBNU), publicly warned any presidential candidate not to drag the organisation into pragmatic politics. Coming just days after the announcement of the Anies-Muhaimin ticket, Yahya's statement was undoubtedly directed at the PKB chairman.
Responding to this public warning from Yahya, many pro-Muhaminin NU cadre and PKB members took to social media. The hashtag #SayaNUSayaPKB ("I am NU therefore I am PKB") has been widely posted and tweeted to show that NU and PKB are essentially inseparable. Among the proponents of this movement is the young and influential kyai Imam Jazuli, as posted on PKB's official Twitter channel.
This grassroots discord is essentially rooted in elite-level factionalism. At its heart is the political rivalry between three main NU factions: Muhaimin's camp; the "Rembang" establishment; and the loyalists of Abdurrahman Wahid (affectionately called "Gus Dur"), the former Indonesian president and one of the founders of PKB. The Rembang establishment encompasses the PBNU chairman Yahya, and his younger brother, Minister for Religious Affairs Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, along with other kyai and NU functionaries under their patronage. These two names hail from a well-respected line of NU figures and pesantren establishments with roots in Rembang, Central Java.
Not surprisingly, soon after the Anies-Muhaimin declaration and the pair's public appearances in the media, Minister Yaqut gave a statement that went further than his elder brother's, appealing for voters not to endorse a candidate who had created and taken advantage of socio-religious polarisation for political purposes. There is no doubt that this statement was directed at Anies, or that it was likely intended to further fan the flames of ideological tension between NU supporters and conservative elements, thus putting Muhaimin at a disadvantage.
The rivalry between Muhaimin's group and the Rembang establishment revolves around the 2021 PBNU Muktamar, or congress, at which Yahya was elected chairman, defeating two-term incumbent Said Aqil Siroj, who is known to be very close to Muhaimin. The emergence of Yahya as the new Chairman meant the reduction – if not the outright disappearance – of Muhaimin's political clout in PBNU.
Source: https://www.newmandala.org/nu-factionalism-on-show-after-anies-muhaimin-surprise