Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia

MANAGING POLITICS AND ISLAM IN INDONESIA 113CREATING DIVISIONSAfter NU’s exit from PPP, new rivalries arose from the fact that NU leaders andtheir followers had their loyalties increasingly divided along party lines (Golkar,PPP, and PDI). Political and business interests keen to improve their access tostate patronage joined Golkar, while PPP loyalists remained with the Islamicorientedparty, and a small number joined PDI. Golkar sought to entice and bullyNU members into joining Golkar and, according to different accounts, thiscaused a major reaction from PPP supporters. 31 Leaders of NU’s Ansor YouthMovement (from branches in Bangil and Pasuruan, East Java), for example,pointed out that the freedom to join any party after 1984 ‘created an unhealthyclimate of mutual suspicion and contest between Golkar and PPP supporters inAnsor. Golkar claimed that Ansor had joined the ruling party.’ 32According to KH Nurcholis Musytari (the deputy rais syuriah of NU’s branchin Bangil), after 1984, there also was continued competition between NU leadersand the MI faction in PPP. The government ensured that MI candidates gainedthe lion’s share of seats—and denied them to NU’s PPP candidates—in most ofthe district parliaments of East Java. 33 The denial of political representation toNU’s PPP candidates shows that Suharto was still seeking to fragment andexclude opposition from NU, despite NU’s formal withdrawal from PPP. Partybaseddivisions in NU were especially evident at the 1992 and 1997 elections,which witnessed PPP supporters in NU clash with NU’s Golkar supporters inmany of the towns of Java. 34 NU’s exit from PPP and resultant rivalries seemedto be an outcome (if not objective) of Suharto’s corporatist strategy.The establishment of ICMI also exacerbated divisions in NU. Most of the NUleaders who joined ICMI were opponents of the NU chairman. The deteriorationof Suharto-Abdurrahman relations during the 1990s strengthened the hand ofrival factions within NU that wished to see Abdurrahman replaced as NU’schairman. Prominent among his adversaries in NU, who joined ICMI, were AliYafie, Fahmi Saifuddin (assistant to the Minister of Public Health), SlametEffendi Yusuf (former leader of the NU’s Ansor Youth Movement), YusufHasyim (Abdurrahman’s uncle), and Chalid Mawardi (also Chairman of MDI-Golkar). Ali Yafie and Chalid Mawardi were members of the so-called ‘Cipete’group, which was defeated by the ‘Situbondo’ group and the government indetermining NU’s central leadership. NU’s 1984 Congress in Situbondo (EastJava) elected Abdurrahman to the chairmanship of the organisation. 35 The Cipetegroup was prominent among rival contenders for NU’s leadership mantle at theNU’s 28 th Congress at Krapyak, Yogyakarta in November 1989.One example of rifts in NU was the growing antagonism betweenAbdurrahman and Ali Yafie. At the Krapyak congress, Ali was elected tothe post of deputy rais aam and had his sights on becoming NU’s next raisaam. 36 After the incumbent, Achmad Siddiq, had passed away in 1990,Abdurrahman thwarted Ali’s efforts to become rais aam. Abdurrahman thoughtthat Suharto was behind Ali’s bid for the senior post. The national magazine,