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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20

INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006: STABILITY,

COMPROMISE AND SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER

IDEOLOGY

Rodd McGibbon

To cite this article: Rodd McGibbon (2006) INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006: STABILITY, COMPROMISE AND SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER IDEOLOGY, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 42:3, 321-340, DOI: 10.1080/00074910601053201

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910601053201

Published online: 23 Nov 2006.

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INDONESIAN POLITICS IN 2006:

STABILITY, COMPROMISE AND

SHIFTING CONTESTS OVER IDEOLOGY

Rodd McGibbon*

Australian National University

The second year of President Yudhoyono’s term in offi_{ce was distinguished by} con-tinuing political stability and important democratic gains, including the continued implementation of direct elections of local government executives and the enact-ment of the Law on Governing Aceh. But if these achieveenact-ments reconfi_rmed Indo-nesia’s membership of the club of electoral democracies, the shallow roots of its democratic system were also apparent, especially in the weakness of the political party system. In preferring pragmatic cross-party deal making, the parties often played down their ideological commitments. Within society, however, ideological debates over the vexed issue of religion and the state intensifi_{ed, and became an} im-portant part of the national political agenda. Amounting to an Indonesian version of the ‘culture wars’, such controversies were sparked by concerns that a proposed national bill on pornography and controversial regional by-laws were an indirect attempt to introduce Islamic law.

THE SBY PRESIDENCY: BALANCING REFORM AND STABILITY

The victory of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in the 2004 presidential elec-tions against a coalition of the country’s largest parties represented a triumph of personality, image and popular choice over machine politics and the power of party bosses (Aspinall 2005). Yudhoyono’s tilt at the presidency was boosted when he was unceremoniously dumped from the cabinet of then president Mega-wati Soekarnoputri, arousing public sympathy for the former security and poli-tics minister and reinforcing popular perceptions of Megawati as an out-of-touch leader. During what was Indonesia’s ﬁ_{rst ever direct election of its president,}

Yudhoyono was able to project himself as being both a comforting authority ﬁ

g-ure and a reformer who would tackle the main economic and political challenges facing Indonesians. This was a virtuous combination for an electorate that had endured over six years of weak government, economic hardship and far-reaching political change.

* This is a revised version of a paper presented to the 24th Indonesia Update conference, Canberra, 22–23 September 2006. I would like to acknowledge insightful comments by Anies Baswedan, who served as discussant for the paper. The article also beneﬁ_{ted from comments} and suggestions by Ed Aspinall, Harold Crouch, Greg Fealy and Marcus Mietzner.

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But unlike his predecessors, Yudhoyono lacked a political base, having won the presidency in a direct appeal to the electorate. Previous presidents Megawati and Abdurrahman Wahid had natural constituencies deriving from Indonesia’s deeply rooted traditions of secular nationalism and traditional Islam, respectively. Yudhoyono’s appeal, on the other hand, came from the popular expectations that he had generated during his campaign of being able to improve security and boost the economy.

Although the handsome majority he received from voters gave Yudhoyono a strong popular mandate, he also recognised that the government would risk instability by alienating the large parties. The government’s legislative program could be subverted by a hostile legislature, while the executive’s control over the bureaucracy, particularly in the regions, might be challenged in the absence of signiﬁ_{cant party backing. As a result, Yudhoyono’s government accommodated}

all major parties except that of former president Megawati (the Indonesian Demo-cratic Party of Struggle, PDI-P), which became the chief opposition party. Follow-ing the pattern established by his predecessors, Yudhoyono formed a ‘rainbow cabinet’ that was intended to neutralise party opposition by distributing cabi-net posts and opening access to state resources across the party system. These arrangements meant that the government was faced with a delicate balancing act between the competing priorities of reform—particularly the need to boost eco-nomic growth—and the maintenance of political stability by accommodating the parties and key interest groups.

Yudhoyono’s presidency was also deﬁ_{ned by his naturally cautious political}

instincts. The methodical manner in which he went about making decisions was calculated to alienate as few constituencies and organised interests as possible. He intervened in political struggles only when he absolutely had to (as in the case of the fuel price hikes) or if he was conﬁ_{dent of a positive outcome (as in the Aceh}

peace process).

These deﬁ_{ning features of the SBY presidency resulted in a strong tendency}

for the government to engage in political compromise and prefer stability over unsettling political and economic change. This orientation complicated reform efforts, particularly on the economic front, as party interests sought compromises on government policy or opposed the government’s reform agenda (Basri and Patunru 2006). Slow progress on the investment law, the government’s initial mis-handling of the long-running Cemex–PT Semen Gresik case,1_{and the government}

backdown on introducing a substantially revised draft labour law to parliament were all examples of the way economic reforms were being slowed, challenged or complicated by political interests both inside the parliament and outside among key interest groups (Manning and Roesad 2006). Furthermore, the appointment of cabinet ministers on the basis of the party they belonged to rather than merit had not only reduced the quality of the cabinet, but introduced competing political

1 Mexican ﬁ_{rm Cemex had hoped to sell its stake in the previously state-owned cement} producer, PT Semen Gresik, to private investors, but this move was initially blocked by Sugiharto, the minister for state owned enterprises. Cemex wanted to divest its shares because of its failure to gain majority control of the company—a result of bitter opposition from regional interests opposed to the central government’s attempt to privatise Semen Gresik. The government ﬁ_{nally approved the divestment in July 2006.}

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agendas into government decision making. Criticisms of the government’s rice import policy, for instance, were fuelled by the government’s own agriculture minister, who initially publicly opposed the policy.

But if the government’s economic reform agenda was complicated by compet-ing interests, its ability to forge political stability still represented an important achievement.

The main bases of political stability

Executive–legislature relations. While cabinet posts gave Yudhoyono the means to co-opt the parties into his government, it was Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s election as chair of the largest party in parliament (the DPR) in December 2004 that cemented the government’s political base. As Golkar party chair, Kalla had gradually consolidated his position throughout 2005, and was able to ensure that Golkar became a key supporter of government policy. With Golkar support added to its backing from smaller parties, the government essentially enjoyed majority support in the DPR. In 2006 this political base allowed the government to push through key legislation, such as the Law on Governing Aceh (addressed in more detail below), and to prevent moves to censure it over several controversial poli-cies, such as the one allowing rice imports.

Although these political arrangements provided stability, the government could not afford to take them for granted. By mid-2006, calls for a cabinet reshufﬂ_{e had}

become increasingly insistent. The Prosperity and Justice Party (PKS), a small but rapidly rising Islamic party, canvassed the option of pulling out of the govern-ment due to frustrations over the slow progress on reform and criticism from its own ranks of the party’s support for unpopular government policies. PKS leaders faced criticism for supporting the government’s decision to cut fuel subsidies in late 2005, for example. This decision also prompted questions in Golkar about its support for the government. By August 2006 Golkar executives were expressing strong misgivings about having to defend the record of the government when the president himself was unwilling to push through and defend difﬁ_cult

deci-sions. As one executive put it, ‘Jusuf Kalla is more policy oriented and he wants to move quickly on policies that are required, but when he goes out in front to promote these unpopular issues, Golkar gets whacked, while the president says nothing’.2

But while it was clear that key parties in the cabinet were becoming highly critical of Yudhoyono’s leadership, there were few signs that they were willing to abandon lucrative posts in cabinet to be relegated to opposition party status in the legislature.The critical statements of the parties therefore appeared to relate more to political posturing as speculation mounted about a cabinet reshufﬂ_e.

The Yudhoyono–Kalla partnership. While party support constituted one ele-ment of the governele-ment’s political base, another was the working relationship between the president and vice president. The powerful position and active role that Kalla had managed to carve out for himself, as well as the radically different approaches of Yudhoyono and Kalla, generated speculation throughout the year about possible rivalry between the two men. Kalla’s hands-on approach to policy was portrayed by the media and advisers close to the president as an attempt

2 Interview with Golkar central board executive, Jakarta, 17 August 2006.

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to position himself to run for the presidency in 2009. Golkar executives, on the other hand, complained about the ‘obsession’ of the Yudhoyono camp with the 2009 election and the ‘paranoia’ of the president’s core circle of advisers regarding Golkar.3

Amid mutual suspicions between the two camps, however, the two leaders con-tinued to forge a strong partnership, with each bringing complementary strengths to the relationship.4 In contrast to Yudhoyono’s quintessentially Javanese reserve and formality, which allowed him to project an image of authority,the less formal style of Kalla, a Buginese from South Sulawesi, appealed to a constituency outside Java. Where Kalla the entrepreneur engaged in problem solving and deal making, Yudhoyono presented himself as a presidential ﬁ_{gure and a symbol of unity above}

the political fray. Where Kalla brought crucial party support to the government, retired general Yudhoyono was able to secure the backing of the security forces. Moreover, despite popular perceptions that Kalla was operating independently as vice president, there was clear evidence that the two jointly planned and coor-dinated the policies that were to become the government’s most important break-throughs. This was clear from accounts of the Aceh peace process, for example (Morﬁ_{tt 2006). Thus, whatever machinations may have been taking place behind}

the scenes to prepare for the 2009 elections, both men continued to have a clear interest in maintaining what had been a highly successful partnership.

The government’s clean image and anti-corruption measures. The government’s position was also buttressed by the fact that it had a relatively clean reputation—a factor militating against stronger opposition from the parties. It was not that the government was scandal free. In February–March 2006, a cabinet secretary and close conﬁ_{dant of the president, Sudi Silalahi, was caught up in an in}ﬂ

uence-peddling scandal that garnered media attention for weeks. In another move that raised questions, the president was alleged to have had a meeting with a group of businessmen involved in the massive Bank Indonesia liquidity credit scandal, with a strong suggestion of impropriety. Reports of these affairs suggested that the Yudhoyono camp was not averse to doing questionable deals with the cor-porate world. But the campaign by Yudhoyono’s opponents to present the gov-ernment as tainted failed to gather much traction. One reason for this was that Yudhoyono was widely viewed as ‘Mr Clean’, as he had remained free of any hint of corruption during a long career as a military ofﬁ_{cer and government minister.}

The other factor that favoured the government was that, whatever impropriety was involved in these affairs, they paled in comparison to the scandals that had engulfed previous governments.

Yudhoyono’s anti-corruption campaign also played a role in reinforcing impres-sions of a government that was committed to avoiding the corrupt practices of its predecessors. The anti-corruption drive was certainly impressive when consid-ered against the inaction of Yudhoyono’s predecessors in the face of what was widely regarded as a pervasive culture of corruption that had corroded public institutions. As a result of its campaign, the government claimed to have net-ted at least seven governors, 63 district heads and 13 members of the national

3 Interview with Golkar central board executive, Jakarta, 17 August 2006.

4 For an extended discussion of the ‘duumvirate’ forged between the president and vice president, see Liddle (2005).

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legislature, who either had been arrested or were under investigation, while mili-tary generals and senior police ofﬁ_{cers were also put under investigation}

(Mal-larangeng 2006).

Unsurprisingly, however, the government’s anti-corruption drive failed to touch entrenched interests at the centre of power. This was consistent with the politics of compromise that the government had adopted in its ﬁ_{rst two years in of}ﬁ_ce,

dur-ing which it not only forged stability by accommodatdur-ing a wide array of political interests, but also adopted a cautious, qualiﬁ_{ed approach to reform, eschewing}

radical and potentially unsettling political and economic change. Several well-known ministers became the subject of media speculation about corrupt activities in 2006, most notably the justice and human rights minister, Hamid Awaluddin. But the anti-corruption drive engulﬁ_{ng less powerful and less well-connected}

politicians and ofﬁ_{cials appeared not to extend to the government’s own cabinet.}

Furthermore, the business interests of the families of Aburizal Bakrie and Jusuf Kalla, and of the notorious, military-linked Tomy Winata, were largely viewed as untouchable. The attorney general’s controversial move to drop criminal charges against Soeharto and redirect the efforts of his ofﬁ_{ce to seeking a return of the}

former president’s ill-gotten wealth appeared as a sideshow in light of the inac-tion against politically connected business interests posiinac-tioned close to contempo-rary power holders.

Nevertheless the government’s corruption effort continued to receive popu-lar support, and helped bolster its public image. The anti-corruption campaign, which had netted ofﬁ_{cials and politicians across the political spectrum,}

repre-sented a promising initiative, especially when considered against the decades of impunity that corruptors had enjoyed. But such efforts did little to challenge the systems of patronage and collusion that were entrenched at the centre of power.

Presidential authority over the armed forces. President Yudhoyono’s growing author-ity over the armed forces was another important element in maintaining stabilauthor-ity. The government faced none of the controversies over potential military insubordi-nation that had plagued the civil–military relations of earlier governments. While Megawati had also developed good relations with the military, she had done so by abandoning any pretence of supremacy over it, and by giving it a relatively free hand—particularly on security policy (Crouch 2003; Jones 2004). In contrast, Yudho-yono actively sought to impose his authority from the earliest days of his presidency. He rejected his predecessor’s nomination for armed forces commander, Ryamizard Ryacudu, an ofﬁ_{cer close to Megawati with a reputation as a hardliner. This move}

was central to Yudhoyono’s strategy of ensuring army (TNI) support for the Aceh peace agreement brokered in August 2005 (Morﬁ_{tt 2006). While Yudhoyono’s}

rejec-tion of Ryamizard’s nominarejec-tion led to a protracted stand-off with the legislature, the president was eventuallyable to ease Ryamizard into a powerless post in TNI headquarters. At the same time he maintained the incumbent commander, Endriar-tono Sutarto—an ofﬁ_{cer who had gained the trust of Yudhoyono—in this position}

until the end of 2005, when he was able to appoint an ofﬁ_{cer loyal to him from}

the air force, Djoko Suyanto, as the new TNI commander (Tempo, 24–30/1/2006). Another ally, former adjutant Djoko Santoso, was appointed to the army’s top post, positioning him to take over from the older Suyanto, who was expected to retire in two years. Yudhoyono’s ability to ease out hardline ofﬁ_{cers and appoint trusted}

ofﬁ_{cers to senior posts reinforced his reputation as a methodical and calculating}

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political leader. Having rung these changes at the end of 2005, Yudhoyono enjoyed growing authority over the military in 2006.

Yudhoyono’s sway over the armed forces was no doubt aided by the fact that his graduating class at military college had come of age in recent years, push-ing up into the most senior levels of the security forces (Tempo, 7–13/2/2006). Yudhoyono, who had been class president and was also the chair of his gradu-ating class’s alumni association, had always been widely accepted as a leader of his generation. Rarely had the top posts in the military been dominated by a single year’s graduating class to the extent they now were. In 2006, the class of 1973 boasted not only the country’s president, but its armed forces commander, national police chief, head of navy, and ﬁ_{ve out of 12 regional area army}

com-manders (Tempo, 7–13/2/2006). In addition, the president’s own relatives were appointed to new positions, including his brother-in-law to the important post of strategic reserve commander.

DEMOCRATIC GAINS

While the dictates of political stability often complicated government efforts to pursue reform, there were nevertheless some important breakthroughs in 2006 in consolidating democratic institutions. They included the enactment of the Law on Governing Aceh and the successful implementation of direct elections of local executives.

The Law on Governing Aceh

The DPR deliberated a bill on the governance of Aceh in the early months of 2006. The bill had been drafted by Acehnese provincial legislators after widespread com-munity consultation. It represented the main outcome of the successful implemen-tation of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki on 15 August 2006. The main pro-visions of the MOU were translated into concrete concessions and a new framework for governing Aceh through the drafting of the bill. The major concessions to GAM were increased revenue transfers to the province and a provision allowing local political parties to contest elections. The latter was arguably the most far-reaching provision for national leaders, who were determined to maintain Indonesia’s uni-tary state and had steadfastly refused to grant the same provision to other regions (where parties ﬁ_{elding candidates must meet national coverage requirements).}

Although deliberations on the bill were fast-tracked, given the importance of the legislation, it nevertheless provoked spirited debate from party factions in the DPR.5 In this debate, the DPR’s two largest parties lined up against each other, with Golkar supporting the government position and PDI-P opposing it. With the government’s prestige on the line, Jusuf Kalla exerted his authority within Golkar to ensure that the party shepherded the draft through the DPR. For its part, PDI-P expressed reservations about the law’s potential to weaken national unity and the underpinnings of the unitary state.

5 My account of the deliberations in the DPR is based on insights from Bivitri Susanti of the legal institute PSHK (Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan), which monitored the process and provided technical assistance to the party factions (interview, Jakarta, 13 August 2006).

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Two points of contention that reﬂ_{ected the nature of the debate concerned the}

name of the law and the obligation of the central government to obtain approval from the province before introducing policies that had an impact on Aceh. On the ﬁ_{rst point, PDI-P objected to the law’s reference to ‘the government of Aceh’}

and suggested that this be replaced with the ‘special region of Aceh’ to emphasise that the province remained part of Indonesia’s unitary state. On the second point, PDI-P insisted that the central government should only have to ‘consult’ with the province and not ‘seek approval’ from it for policies and laws with an impact on Aceh. While Golkar stressed the importance of the Aceh peace process, PDI-P emphasised the need to safeguard the unitary state against the threat of disinte-gration.

Desperate to achieve a breakthrough, the government offered several conces-sions to PDI-P. As a result PDI-P dropped its insistence on the name change—a largely symbolic objection—as well as some other demands, in return for the central government having only to ‘consult’ with the province, and not seek its approval, in adopting policies that impacted on Aceh. While conceding a largely symbolic point, therefore, PDI-P won the more substantive debate. This latter con-cession, strictly speaking, was a departure from the Helsinki MOU upon which the law was supposed to be based. In addition, in its ﬁ_{nal form the law included}

a general repressive clause in which the home affairs ministry had the authority to annul provincial regulations if it deemed them not to be in the ‘public interest’, a common principle in Indonesian law but one that had far-reaching implications for the form of self-government being granted to the province. These clauses cer-tainly disabused advocates of federalism of any notion that the Aceh law would open the way for a federal system of government.

Having reached this compromise, all political factions in the DPR endorsed the law, and it passed the legislature on 12 July 2006. The law granted many of the same concessions contained in the 2001 special autonomy law for Aceh. These included permission to implement shari’a (Islamic) law, subject to supreme court review. Several key additional concessions negotiated in Helsinki were enacted in the new law, namely the joint management of Aceh’s oil and gas resources by the provincial and central governments; provision for the establishment of an ad hoc

human rights tribunal; generous revenue transfer arrangements to the province for the next 20 years; provision for the formation of local political parties that would be allowed to contest local and national elections from 2009 onwards; and direct elections of local executives that would permit independent candidates to run in the upcoming electoral cycle.

While the compromise forged in the ﬁ_{nal version of the law largely} satis-ﬁ_{ed national political factions, the law met with strong protests in Aceh. While}

GAM was careful not to reject the law outright, NGOs such as the Aceh Referen-dum Information Centre (SIRA), which had close ties to GAM, did reject it and threatened mass protests, while also threatening to submit a request for the con-stitutional court to review the case (Kompas, 13/7/2006). For its part, GAM was critical of a number of provisions that ‘deviated from the MOU’ (JP, 8/8/2006), in particular the way in which the central bureaucracy retained its policy-making authority over Aceh, as reﬂ_{ected in the provisions discussed above. As a result,}

GAM spokesmen called for a revision of the law to ensure that it complied with the Helsinki MOU, lodging a formal request with the Aceh Monitoring Mission

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(AMM), the joint EU–ASEAN group monitoring the peace agreement. The clause about ‘consulting’ with the province was the most contentious for GAM. Moreo-ver, GAM was disappointed that the law did not explicitly limit troop levels in the province, and that the ad hoc human rights tribunal was explicitly limited to cases occurring after the law came into effect. From 13 to 16 August, in celebrations marking the signing of the MOU, SIRA led peaceful demonstrations that saw tens of thousands of Acehnese descend on the provincial capital of Banda Aceh to pro-test against the law (Kompas, 14/8/2006, 18/8/2006).

These protests were short-lived, as both the government and AMM rejected demands that the law be amended as both unrealistic and unnecessary. AMM had little other option, as it could do nothing to intervene in the deliberations of Indo-nesia’s sovereign legislature, and also realised that a rejection of the law by GAM would likely result in a deadlock and the possible collapse of the peace process. As a result, the head of AMM, Pieter Feith, made it clear in late July that GAM must accept the democratic processes that had produced the law. He also declared that the general spirit of the law was consistent with the Helsinki MOU, adding, how-ever, that future government policies or regulations should address shortcomings in the law (Kompas, 24/7/2006). Such qualiﬁ_{cations merely highlighted the fact}

that the ﬁ_{nal law had departed from some of the more far-reaching concessions}

contained in the MOU. Facing pressure from the government and AMM to accept the law, GAM agreed to suspend its public objections, although privately remain-ing very critical. This decision represented another major concession by GAM to advance peace in the province, and a further indication that it remained strongly committed to the process. The government, for its part, heralded the enactment of the Law on Governing Aceh as a major breakthrough. It certainly represented the most important political triumph for the government in 2006.

With the law setting the main framework for governance in the province, pro-vincial authorities and community leaders, including GAM, faced the daunting challenge of drafting some 100 implementing regulations of the law, virtually all of which were provincial regulations (qanun). The most immediate task was the implementation of elections throughout Aceh for provincial and district-level executives, scheduled for 11 December 2006. The elections would determine the governorship as well as the leadership of Aceh’s districts and municipalities. GAM had announced that its members could run, but that it would not ofﬁ_cially

be ﬁ_{elding candidates. While GAM}ﬁ_{gures hardly dominated the lists of}

candi-dates, several notable leaders did announce their candidature—including GAM spokesman Irwandi for the position of governor, with Mohammad Nazar, the head of SIRA, as his running mate.

While the new law provided an unprecedented opportunity to secure the peace in Aceh, other developments indicated that this process might not be all smooth sailing. The program to integrate ex-combatants into society failed to fulﬁ_l

expec-tations among former GAM soldiers, and became a point of contention within the organisation as a gap appeared to open up between GAM leaders and the rank and ﬁ_{le. Moreover, the reconstruction process following the 2004 tsunami that had}

devastated so much of Aceh’s coastline was proceeding more slowly than hoped. The quality of housing built by NGOs was one major problem, reﬂ_{ected in the low}

occupancy rates for new houses. This represented a serious embarrassment for the authorities, as it raised the issue of why supervision of construction standards

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had not been properly carried out (Kompas, 25/7/2006). Even more troubling were the serious allegations of corruption levelled at BRR (Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi NAD–Nias), the central government agency in charge of the Aceh and Nias reconstruction effort (Kompas, 22/4/2006).

Local elections and party politics

Direct elections for local government executives were launched in June 2005, and continued in regions throughout Indonesia in 2006. By the end of 2006 approxi-mately 60% of all local governments had been elected directly. The elections, representing the ﬁ_{rst time that Indonesians had directly chosen their own local}

ofﬁ_{cials, complemented the successful implementation of direct presidential}

elec-tions in 2004.

This constituted a signiﬁ_{cant breakthrough in deepening Indonesia’s}ﬂ

edg-ling democracy. Previously, the national and local legislatures had elected gov-ernment executives. This arrangement was widely believed to have promoted entrenched oligarchic interests in the political system. The tendency for legisla-tors to elect bureaucrats and businessmen with links to the New Order, both at the national and local level, conﬁ_{rmed these suspicions (Malley 2003)}_{as did reports}

that ‘money politics’ was rampant. This phrase had become popular to describe how the executive, or candidates for the executive, engaged in vote buying in the legislature to ensure election to ofﬁ_{ce, or political support from the parties once}

they were in power. There were widespread reports of executives paying parties to ensure that the government’s annual accountability report was approved, or that budget bills and other draft laws were passed by the legislature. In this way, the legislature had become an extension of the patronage network that operated among the elite, involving a complex web of relationships between the executive, bureaucracy and legislature. Such problems led to a groundswell of support for direct elections of executives, which brought Yudhoyono to power as well as new

bupati (district heads), walikota (mayors) and governors.

In addition to deepening Indonesia’s evolving democracy, the introduction of direct elections enhanced the prospects for Indonesia remaining a uniﬁ_{ed state.}

The elections belied expectations that allowing the electorate to choose its own leaders would strengthen disintegrative forces challenging the state. In fact, while politics in Indonesia became much more localised, this trend did not result in a discernible rise in local chauvinism against the centre. On the contrary, direct local elections appeared to divert attention from any potential discontent with Jakarta by channelling political demands into competition among local leaders, and putting the focus ﬁ_{rmly on issues of local governance and the management}

of local resources.

These conclusions can be illustrated by showing how the dire predictions of elite politicians and the media regarding the elections remained unrealised. In this context three major trends can be discerned. The ﬁ_{rst is that the direct elections}

did not realise widespread fears of chaos and violence, but rather resulted in out-comes that were generally accepted as legitimate and allowed for the formation of credible local administrations. This is not to deny the manifold problems in organisation that plagued the running of the elections. The local election commis-sions (KPUDs), lacking capacity and experience, were largely expected to run the elections with little support from the home affairs ministry, especially as the law

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on local governance gave no role to the more experienced central election com-mission (KPU). There were major problems with the voter registration roll and the nomination process, which resulted in controversy and protests by groups claim-ing to have been disenfranchised.

A greater threat to the elections than protests over poor administration was the propensity of supporters of losing candidates to contest the outcome. In elections across the country, protests were staged against the KPUDs to challenge the results. But these protests were not protracted, as losing candidates eventually opted to take their cases to the courts, which overwhelmingly upheld the ofﬁ_{cial results. The}

channelling of disputes into the legal system, and their resolution through legal processes, had the beneﬁ_{cial effect of mitigating electoral violence.}6

The most notable of these cases was the dispute over the election of prominent PKS leader Nurmahmudi Ismail, who had defeated the Golkar candidate, Badrul Kamal, in the municipality of Depok, just south of Jakarta. The result was over-turned by the West Java high court, but that decision was subsequently annulled by the supreme court on the basis that the West Java court had accepted ‘assumptions and not facts’ (Tempo, 10–16/1/2006). Following this decision, Badrul appealed to the home affairs ministry to reverse the decision (Tempo, 10–16/1/2006), but it studiously avoided becoming embroiled in any controversy over election results. Badrul also mounted a constitutional court challenge questioning the right of the supreme court to hear the case, a challenge that was rejected. The Depok case was exceptional for the national media attention it attracted, a reﬂ_{ection of the}

promi-nence of Nurmahmudi, a former minister, and for the protracted legal case that followed. But the case reﬂ_{ected the general tendency of the courts to uphold the}

results as delivered by the KPUDs, and the government’s reluctance to interfere in such cases.

The second trend that merits attention concerns the kinds of leaders that emerged as winners in the elections. There is little doubt that the elections failed to facilitate the emergence of new social forces on the political scene. This was partly the fault of the local government law, which stipulated that eligible candidates had to be nominated by parties that—either individually or as a coalition—had received at least 15% of the vote or of the seats in legislative elections. This put the large parties in a strong position to bargain with potential candidates, and it was only candidates with access to signiﬁ_{cant funding who could afford to make}

contributions to the nominating parties as well as bankroll their own campaigns. In a random survey of 50 local elections, Mietzner (2005) found that business peo-ple and ofﬁ_{cials dominated the nomination process, comprising 28% and 36%}

respectively of all candidates. Party followers or legislative members comprised a mere 22% of candidates, demonstrating the difﬁ_{culties all parties except Golkar}

and PKS were experiencing in establishing strong local branches from which to

6 The level of political violence between supporters of rival parties was low compared to previous elections, and incidents occurred only infrequently. One notable exception was Tuban, East Java, where PDI-P and PKB (the National Awakening Party) support-ers burned down the KPUD ofﬁ_{ces and attacked properties belonging to the successful} Golkar candidate in May 2006, re-igniting traditionally volatile political tensions (Tempo, 9–15/5/2006).

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recruit. In other words, the parties had become brokers in the process, reﬂ_ecting

the weakly rooted nature of the party system.

But while the diversity of candidates on offer was limited, voters were never-theless able to make discerning choices. Research by the People’s Voter Education Network (JPPR) covering 224 regions found that over 40% of incumbents seeking re-election were swept from ofﬁ_{ce by voters dissatis}ﬁ_{ed with their performance}

(JP, 29/6/2006). The research also showed that those incumbents who failed in their re-election bids were generally considered to have under-performed or were subject to serious corruption allegations, while incumbents with an above average performance and perceived as untainted by corruption tended to be re-elected. Furthermore, while having money was an important factor in gaining nomina-tion, it was not the decisive factor in winning the election. The most notable exam-ple of this occurred in the West Sumatra provincial election in 2005, when a former NGO ﬁ_{gure and anti-corruption campaigner, Gamawam Fauzi, was elected on a}

platform of rejecting ‘money politics’—an orientation that was not shared by his wealthy rival candidates in the campaign. In other elections, there were wide-spread accusations of attempted vote buying by candidates who made various ‘contributions’ to local communities, but this practice did not appear to inﬂ_uence

the results unduly. The campaign run by NGOs and others to ‘take the money, but vote with your conscience’ appeared to have become entrenched as a tradition of Indonesian politics, and a counter-weight to vote buying.

Just as money and incumbency no longer represented key factors in determin-ing electoral outcomes, neither did the power of party machines. On the con-trary, the main factor that appeared to shape voter behaviour was the electorate’s assessment of the candidates and the overall image that candidates were able to project among the community. This was reﬂ_{ected in modern campaign strategies,}

which had become more salient as a result of the direct elections system. Media outreach and public opinion polling were essential resources for campaign teams; political consultants were hired by candidates; and party machines were eclipsed by small teams supporting the candidates to run their campaigns.7 Personal

pro-ﬁ_{les within the community became a far more important political commodity for}

candidates than their party loyalties. As a result, parties preferred candidates that were popular and well known in preference to long-serving party ofﬁ_{ce holders.}

These new dynamics indicated that the electorate tended to favour those candi-dates who had strong local networks, and were therefore seen as more accounta-ble and responsive to local communities (Mietzner 2006a; Vel 2005). This was clear in the poor performance of many retired military ofﬁ_{cers, who relied on money,}

elite connections and their military record in running for ofﬁ_{ce. The outcome of}

the elections belied fears that direct local elections would become a means by which the military could retain a political role in Indonesia’s post-authoritarian order. Exemplary here was the Papuan provincial election, in which Dick Henk Wabiser, a retired admiral, sought to capitalise on his status as one of the few Papuans to rise to such heights within the military. But Wabiser’s performance in public debates during the campaign was poor, and he ran last out of the ﬁ_ve

candidates (Mietzner, forthcoming).

7 Interview with Saiful Mujani, director of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), Jakarta, 8 August 2006.

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The winning candidates that emerged exhibited a range of different leadership styles. With the elections introducing an element of downward accountability into the political system, the newly elected executives had to take account of citizens’ demands as never before, and some were more successful in responding to these new dictates than others. In Jimbrana and Banyuwangi, the winning candidates were ‘deliberative democrats’ who adopted a personal leadership style in appealing directly to the electorate. In Ambon, the mayor pursued similarly popular policies, but complemented them with institutional reforms, including the recruitment of women to strategic government posts. In North Sulawesi and West Sumatra, candi-dates who were untainted by corruption or were strong anti-corruption campaign-ers were swept into ofﬁ_{ce against incumbents tainted by allegations of impropriety.}

In Bantul, Kebumen, Depok, Blitar, Sleman and many other districts, local govern-ment heads gave priority to a good governance agenda that focused on transparent procurement and improving services. In Central Kalimantan and Papua, governors with a strong programmatic approach based on boosting development in remote areas were elected to ofﬁ_{ce over candidates who sought to tap into ethnic}

senti-ment. At the other end of the spectrum, the bupati of Kutai Kartanegara was able to use the fabulous wealth of his resource-rich district to buy political support, in a style that owed more to the Soeharto era than the new style of politics that was emerging in other districts.

The ﬁ_{nal trend}_{that needs to be identi}ﬁ_{ed here is the way in which the}

elec-tions did not favour candidates with narrow religious or ethnic agendas, despite predictions. This was largely due to the institutional design of the election system itself, and the fact that the parties preferred to forge pragmatic alliances rather than promote divisive ideological platforms. The key features of the local election system were a stipulation that eligible candidates had to be nominated by parties that had received at least 15% of the vote or of the seats in legislative elections, a requirement for single tickets for the candidature of heads and deputy heads of regions, and a 25% threshold for election which, if not achieved, would result in a second round election. Such features were explicitly designed to encourage the parties to form broad-based coalitions. As a result, local ‘primordial’ politics was largely rejected by the electorate. The JPPR research showed, for instance, that Islamic parties won in only 7% of the regions covered, with nationalists winning in another 32%. The majority of elections were won by broad-based coalitions that included both nationalist and Islamic parties. Moreover, several key gubernato-rial races, as touched on above, were won by candidates eschewing ‘primordial’ politics over rivals seeking to beneﬁ_{t from strong ethnic sentiment.}

Inﬂ_{uenced by the need to broaden their appeal, the parties engaged in}

coali-tion building in the local eleccoali-tions, a pervasive practice that produced some strange ideological bedfellows. In Yogyakarta, PDI-P and the United Develop-ment Party (PPP) put a tumultuous history of intense rivalry and violence behind them to form an early joint ticket to contest the elections (Kompas, 25/7/2006). In other regions, the strongly Islamic PKS teamed up with nationalist parties such as PDI-P, and in several celebrated cases joined forces with the Prosperity and Peace Party (PDS), a Christian party. In the Mentawai elections, for example, PKS supported a candidate who was a Christian minister (JP, 13/7/2006).

In forging broad-based coalitions, the parties embarked on campaigns that were largely free from divisive ideological issues that might heighten local

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cal tensions or even threaten national unity. The platforms that emerged from these campaigns involved generic stands on issues that were shared by virtu-ally all the candidates, such as pledges to tackle poverty, reform the bureaucracy, counter corruption, support clean government and revive the ‘people’s economy’. The Islamic parties had in fact soft-pedalled on Islamic issues in both the 1999 and 2004 legislative elections, as they soon realised that strict Islamic agendas appealed only to narrow constituencies. The direct local elections perpetuated this trend.

While beneﬁ_{cial in many respects, this tendency} _{for parties to take}

increas-ingly pragmatic directions also highlighted some of the challenges to consolidat-ing Indonesia’s new political system. The local elections demonstrated the extent to which party politics had become devoid of ideological interests and dominated by pragmatic considerations of power sharing and distribution of the spoils of ofﬁ_{ce among parties. This was largely due to the salience of patronage politics, but}

was also related to the fact that the parties that had adopted conservative Islamic platforms had not performed well in electoral terms since 1999. The new alliances gave rise to cynicism about the parties and widespread criticism of the ideological vacuum that had marked local elections. Bibit Waluyo, a retired military ofﬁ_cer

who is a candidate for elections to be held in Jakarta in 2007, summed up the pre-vailing sense of ideological promiscuity by saying, ‘[It’s] no problem [having such alliances], we need religious-nationalists’ (Tempo, 11–17/7/2006). Critics blamed the parties for abandoning their ideological commitments in favour of elite deal making and a preoccupation with capturing state resources.

Shifting contests over ideology

At the same time that ideology was becoming a secondary factor in party politics, ideological debates were being sparked within the broader society. These debates involved long-running struggles between Islamists and secular nationalists over the state’s role in upholding shari’a law. They had periodically surfaced through-out Indonesia’s history, and were re-ignited in 2006.

To understand the context in which the debates unfolded, it is crucial to appre-ciate the long history of failure of political Islam in Indonesia. This began with the defeat of Islamists in the formation of the Indonesian state in 1945, when the founding fathers opted for religious neutrality by rejecting the insertion of a clause acknowledging Islamic law in the Jakarta Charter—the preamble to the constitu-tion. After decades of being suppressed, Islamists found new democratic space to revive their demands following the collapse of the Soeharto regime in 1998. But their efforts to insert the contested section of the Jakarta Charter into Indonesia’s heavily amended constitution in 2000–02 were once again thwarted. Since that defeat, the debate over the Jakarta Charter at the national level has largely lost momentum.

In 2006, however, the debate re-emerged in a different guise, in efforts to shape laws and policies that regulated social behaviour on the basis of conservative social values. In light of the successive failures of political Islam, Islamists increas-ingly shifted their attention from constitutional change to issues of public moral-ity. This gave rise to Indonesia’s own version of the ‘culture wars’, waged by Muslims wanting their own religious values to be reﬂ_{ected in national law and}

local regulations.

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These efforts are illustrated by two issues that sparked major controversy and debate. The ﬁ_{rst was the adoption of Islamic-inspired by-laws (}_{perda shari’a}_{) by}

a growing number of regional governments. Reports indicated that the number of regions adopting such laws increased throughout 2005–06 to reach at least 37, including governments in West Java, South Sulawesi, Aceh, Lombok, South Kali-mantan, Bengkulu and West Sumatra.8 The by-laws in these regions included bans on the sale of alcohol, regulations on the payment of wealthtax (zakat), bans on prostitution and gambling and, in regions such as Aceh and Padang, regulations obliging women to wear Islamic clothing such as headscarves (jilbab).

The forces driving the adoption of these regulations were multi-dimensional, and varied from region to region. For instance, regulations on zakat were adopted by the government of the poor and under-developed district of East Lombok, leading to a cut in teachers’ already low incomes, a move that provoked strikes and protests. This measure appeared to be little more than a revenue-raising meas-ure by the local government. In other cases, those driving the adoption of shari’a

by-laws were distinctly non-Islamist members of local parliaments (DPRDs) and local government heads, in many cases from Golkar. This suggested that motives other than religion were at work. Adopting religiously inspired by-laws would have been an attractive option for embattled political elites attempting to over-come serious legitimacy problems, particularly given increasing public identiﬁ

-cation of the local political class with corruption and unethical rent seeking. But growing piety within Indonesian society has also been a long-term trend in Indo-nesia (Fealy 2005), so adopting such laws to reﬂ_{ect changing community values}

may have been unremarkable, even for nationalist politicians.

Other cases, such as the regulations against prostitution in Tangerang district, appeared to be a response on the part of local authorities to lax law enforcement by police and the courts. Although characterised by their opponents as Islamic inspired, these measures had more to do with efforts by local governments to respond to law and order challenges. This larger attempt by local governments to ﬁ_{ll the gap in law enforcement left by national institutions included the}

estab-lishment ofcivilian security forces(pamswakarsa) and public order units (Erawan 2006).

To complicate the picture, it is also true that these by-laws were most heavily promotedin areas that had deeply entrenched histories of demands for the imple-mentation of Islamic law.9 In these areas, deeply rooted Islamist communities, many associated with Darul Islam—a movement that had rebelled against the central government in several regions in the 1950s in support of an Islamic state— were instrumental in promoting the adoption of the by-laws. This was most nota-ble in South Sulawesi, where the Committee for Preparation for Implementation of Shari’a (KPPSI), whose chairman was the son of the leader of the local Darul Islam movement, Kahar Muzakkar, had been lobbying government ofﬁ_{cials at}

least since 2001 for the introduction of such by-laws.

8 Figures cited by the Indonesia Survey Network on the Liputan6 news program, SCTV, 24 August 2006.

9 I am indebted to Anies Baswedan for highlighting this aspect of the development of regional by-laws.

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By the middle of the year the government—which retained control of religious affairs in all provinces except Aceh—faced a growing clamour to annul many of the shari’a-inspired by-laws. Not wanting to alienate Indonesia’s vocal Islamic leaders, however, the home affairs minister, M. Maruf, side-stepped the issue by announcing that ‘we have decided that governors should be given a greater role in identifying unwieldy by-laws and they should bring them to us for further discussion’ (JP, 15/6/2006). Maruf was essentially washing his hands of respon-sibility to strike down the regional regulations, by putting the onus on governors to recommend action against district ofﬁ_{cials. The government’s reluctance to act}

was related not just to its sensitivities towards religious constituencies but also to uncertainties over the country’s decentralisation laws, particularly their failure to clarify the division of power and responsibilities across levels of government. This lack of clarity had essentially allowed interests in the regions to create regulations inspired by religious values and interests, even though the regional autonomy law stipulated that the central government was responsible for religious affairs.

The second issue that re-ignited the national debate about Islamic law was the DPR’s deliberations on a controversial and wide-ranging anti-pornography bill, a product of the late Soeharto period. Authored by conservative religious groups in the Ministry of Religion, it had never been put on the legislative schedule by the DPR (Salim 2006).

The fact that the bill re-appeared in 2006 and was supported by Islamist par-ties in the DPR, particularly PKS and PPP, suggested that social policy was being used by the parties to make up for the way they had played down their ideological commitments in favour of pragmatic politics. As a result, the battle of ideas was increasingly being fought in the domain of social policy and culture. Because the parties had become the ultimate pragmatists in focusing on elite deal making across ideological lines, they sought to compensate by taking a strong stance on social issues. By defending their positions on pornography, prostitution and gambling, the parties sought not only to differentiate themselves but to energise that part of their political base that did have strong ideological attachments. This applied espe-cially to PKS, which had been a major force behind the anti-pornography bill at the same time as it had embraced pragmatic, deal-making politics in the local elections and in joining the SBY cabinet.

The bill was very detailed, including 93 provisions that regulated modes of expression in the media, ﬁ_{lms, dance, poetry, paintings and areas classi}ﬁ_{ed as}

‘lewd behaviour’. The controversial provisions included a ban on ‘adults display-ing sensual body parts’, on ‘kissdisplay-ing in a public place’ and on ‘erotic dance or erotic movements in public places’ (Tempo, 7–13/2/2006). The bill also provided for an anti-pornography board, raising serious concerns about censorship. Those vio-lating the bill’s provisions faced the prospect of long prison sentences and hefty

ﬁ_nes.

These developments were interpreted with growing alarm by liberal Islamic leaders and other advocates of pluralism as an unmistakable sign of the rising tide of political Islam. One well-known Muslim intellectual, Syaﬁ_{’i Anwar, claimed}

that a ’shari’a-isation of Indonesia’ was taking place, while another claimed that ‘Indonesia was on the verge of becoming an Islamic state’ (JP, 4/5/2006). Such views were mirrored in foreign accounts of the rise of political Islam throughout Southeast Asia (Abuza 2003).

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There were several reasons, however, to be sceptical about claims that develop-ments in 2006 were part of an inexorable rise of political Islam. The ﬁ_{rst was that}

many of the regulations characterised as being shari’a inspired were already con-tained in Indonesia’s criminal code, and were adopted by local governments as a symbolic rather than a substantive act. Indeed, in many cases the regional by-laws that were enacted by regional government were not seriously enforced by local authorities. The second was that the shift in focus of Islamists from constitutional struggles to the promotion of conservative social values in law was in fact an indica-tion of their essential weakness, as demonstrated above.

The third reason related to the fact that both the regional by-laws and the anti-pornography law could be viewed as part of a longer-term trend of growing Islamic pietism in Indonesia. This trend has been clearly documented, and repre-sents a cultural and social phenomenon separate from, and not necessarily linked to, Islamism as a political ideology (Fealy 2005). In other words, the trend for mainstream Muslims to wear Islamic dress, and to demonstrate greater observ-ance of religious obligations such as praying ﬁ_{ve times a day, did not necessarily}

translate into political gains for Islamists, whose fortunes had ebbed and ﬂ_owed

ever since the 1950s (Fealy 2005). The fact that the regional by-laws were promoted and in some cases initiated by nationalist politicians reﬂ_{ected the broader appeal}

of introducing conservative social values into government policies and laws, in contrast to the nationalist politicians’ rejection of the formal adoption of shari’a

in the constitution. Baswedan (2004) has also shown how the old ideological and political boundaries between those professing a secular nationalist agenda and those professing an Islamic agenda have become blurred as a result of growing pietism within society. Thus, in reﬂ_{ecting shifting community values, nationalist}

politicians, especially in Golkar, have increasingly adopted Islamic social values while remaining committed to the pluralist underpinnings of the state. For their part, many Islamic leaders have recognised the current lack of appeal of politi-cal Islam, and have promoted Pancasila as the main state doctrine.10

Finally, those ringing alarm bells about the ‘shari’a-isation’ of Indonesia have largely failed to take into account the strong countervailing forces in Indonesian society against the rise of political Islam. The fate of the draft anti-pornography law provides a concrete example of the way the ‘pluralist mainstream’ struck back against demands that were seen to have gone too far, even in light of popular support for measures intended to uphold public morality. In fact, the bill provoked signiﬁ_cant

and widespread public opposition, in which representatives of a wide range of con-stituencies—pro-democracy leaders, artists, traditional dancers, nationalist politi-cians and, perhaps most signiﬁ_{cantly, regional leaders—came out against the bill. In}

March, the Bali provincial DPRD held a special session to reject the bill, asking the government to revoke it on the basis that it not only offended Bali’s Hindu values, but would violate the freedom of expression of the island’s thriving community of artists, while also dealing a blow to the tourism sector (Tempo, 21–27/3/2006). Similar sentiments were expressed by Papua and North Sulawesi. These sentiments were signiﬁ_{cant, as they showed that attempts to introduce elements of Islamic law}

and morality into Indonesian law threatened to trigger regional opposition from

10 The Pancasila are the ﬁ_{ve guiding principles of the Indonesian state; these are: belief in} Almighty God, humanitarianism, nationalism, democracy and social justice.

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Indonesia’s diverse population. In August the DPR announced that it had decided to revise the anti-pornography bill to reﬂ_{ect community sentiment.}11_{In September}

it resubmitted the bill to a special committee, shorn of its more far-reaching provi-sions. From 93 original articles, the parliament had reduced the bill to 29 provisions for discussion and review.

Other examples of this reassertion of Indonesia’s pluralist tradition were also evident as anxieties mounted that efforts to enshrine Islamic values in state law had gone too far. Political party leaders from the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the nationalist student group GMNI (Gerakan Mahasiswa Nasional Indonesia) met with the president to express their concerns (Tempo, 5–11/6/2006). Yudhoyono vowed to ‘speak out’ on the issue, and did so in an ofﬁ_{cial speech to mark}

Pan-casila Day on 1 June. The speech was conspicuous for the social vision that his other speeches had tended to lack. Tempo magazine heralded Yudhoyono’s remarks as ‘the speech that has long been awaited by many groups’ (Tempo, 5–11/6/2006). In it, Yudhoyono appealed to all Indonesians to reafﬁ_{rm ‘the fundamental basis of our}

national life’, which included the recognition of diversity, acceptance of the unitary state and the constitution, and tenets of social justice contained in Pancasila (Tempo, 5–11/6/2006).

Yudhoyono’s speech provided the impetus for a range of national leaders to offer their own defence of Pancasila and Indonesia’s social diversity. Mega-wati’s contribution was more direct than the carefully chosen words of Yudho-yono, accusing certain groups of wanting to ‘ﬂ_{atten out the nation’s diversity’}

and proclaiming that ‘diversity mustbe defended’ (Kompas, 5/6/2006). A group of pro-democracy leaders also weighed into the debate in defence of Pancasila, including intellectuals such as Goenawan Mohamad, Faisal Basri, Daniel Dhaki-dae and Todong Mulya Lubis. Views such as these found widespread expres-sion in the media, particularly in the liberal press such as the Jakarta Post, Tempo,

Media Indonesia and Kompas. This debate showed the continuing resilience and resonance of Pancasila, despite having provided the Soeharto regime with the main ideological justiﬁ_{cation for enforcing its repressive rule. The debate that}

arose in June indicated that efforts were being made to rehabilitate the Pancasila doctrine and reclaim it from the authoritarian project of the New Order. Daniel Dhakidae highlighted Pancasila’s dark past, but also pointed to the need for its redemption in such difﬁ_{cult times, focusing on the principles of ‘social justice’}

it offered (JP, 3/6/2006). Goenawan Mohammad echoed these remarks, saying thatPancasila was never intended as ‘an absolute doctrine but [was] a compro-mise reached by the founding fathers who realised the pluralistic nature of the new nation’ (JP, 1/6/2006).

If this restatement of Pancasila represented an important defence of Indonesia’s social diversity during 2006, the actions of hardline groups and leaders continued to pose a challenge to religious pluralism. Groups such as the Islamic Defend-ers Front (FPI) and the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) continued to engage in violent demonstrations against their opponents, although the government did seek to arrest and control them. But such groups had been granted some semi-ofﬁ_{cial respectability by the increasingly intolerant}_fatwa_{(religious rulings) being}

issued by the Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI). Hardline groups used these

11 Interview, Eva Sundari, Jakarta, a PDI-P member of the DPR, 16 August 2006.

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fatwa, which included opposition to ‘pluralism, liberalism and secularism’, to jus-tify violent attacks on their opponents. While President Yudhoyono pledged to crack down on groups breaking the law, the Islamic militant groups continued to engage in intimidatory action and ﬂ_{ex their muscles. In one of their more public}

displays, FPI and afﬁ_{liated groups made public threats against the editors of the}

tame Indonesian version of Playboy magazine.

But the most serious threat that such actions posed was to Indonesia’s reli-gious minorities, particularly groups deemed heretical by mainstream relireli-gious authorities. The groups that provoked most attention throughout the year were two Muslim sects, Ahmadiyah and a ‘cult’ led by Lia Eden. They were accused by the MUI of being heretical and faced militant action against them. Over 100 mem-bers of Ahmadiyah in West Lombok were forcibly displaced from their villages in February, and subsequently requested asylum in Australia and other countries due to fears of continuing religious persecution.

CONCLUSION

The deﬁ_{ning features of the SBY presidency became more apparent during his}

sec-ond year in ofﬁ_{ce. The government successfully forged political stability through}

its accommodation of a wide range of party interests in the cabinet, through the vice president’s control over Golkar, and through the strong personal author-ity the president wielded over the armed forces. At the same time, Yudhoyono’s campaign for ofﬁ_{ce had generated popular expectations that he would resolve}

the most pressing problems facing Indonesia. This related especially to the need to boost the economy, which would require potentially painful adjustments and reforms. In tackling this challenge the government appointed technocratic ﬁ_gures

to key economics ministries, and committed itself to reform measures aimed at boosting investment. But the competing demands of stability and reform required a delicate balancing act. The president’s cautious and calculating political instincts tilted the balance in favour of stability over reform as the government engaged in political compromise with the varying interests represented by the parties and other key organised groups.

While the government’s preference for stability over potentially unsettling change complicated the economic reform agenda, the stable arrangements it had forged allowed for several gains on the democratic reform front. The enactment of the Law on Governing Aceh and the successful implementation of direct local elections represented important achievements for the government, and deepened Indonesia’s democratic consolidation. The success of the Aceh peace process was based not only on GAM’s commitment to peace but also on the ability of the presi-dent and vice presipresi-dent to ensure backing from key elements of the political elite. The president’s personal authority over the military ensured that it desisted from becoming a spoiler in the process. Meanwhile, Jusuf Kalla’s key role in Golkar was instrumental in ensuring the successful enactment of the Law on Governing Aceh in mid-2006, a signiﬁ_{cant step towards advancing a sustainable peace in}

the province. The successful implementation of direct local elections of execu-tives also strengthened national unity and represented a signiﬁ_{cant democratic}

breakthrough. The local elections represented the ﬁ_{rst time that Indonesians had}

chosen their own local ofﬁ_{cials directly. With the institution of direct elections, the}

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new executives had to take account of citizens’ demands as never before. More-over, the dire predictions of elite politicians that giving people the right to elect their leaders directly would lead to political conﬂ_{ict and result in the emergence}

of divisive primordialism failed to materialise. Quite to the contrary, the elections were marked by cross-party coalition building in which ideological platforms were largely abandoned.

But while ideology became an increasingly secondary feature of the party sys-tem, old ideological debates about religion and the state were sparked within the broader community. The driving forces behind these debates were complex, and reﬂ_{ected shifting contests over ideology. The parties had increasingly downplayed}

their ideological attachments, partly because of their focus on pragmatic political considerations, and partly because of the limited electoral appeal of strict Islamic platforms. This was particularly true of attempts to enshrine Islamic law in the constitution, a project marked by repeated political failures. As a result, the debate over religion and the state shifted from constitutional struggles to the realm of social policy and values, reﬂ_{ected in debates over regional by-laws and the}

con-troversial anti-pornography bill. The emergence of Indonesia’s own version of the ‘culture wars’ through these debates reﬂ_{ected longer-term trends of growing}

pietism among Indonesian Muslims. It is through the lens of these longer-term social trends of growing public adherence to Islamic symbols in the community that the ideological debates of 2006 can be interpreted.

Whether Islamists will be able to make political gains from attempts to have conservative social values reﬂ_{ected in government regulations and laws in the}

future remains an open question. Events during 2006 show that while Indonesian society is becoming more openly Islamic, there are few indications of an inexora-ble rise of political Islam.

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