Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia

114 NAHDLATUL ULAMA: BETWEEN INCORPORATION AND INDEPENDENCETempo, reported that (it was said) Ali spent too much time in MUI to be able toassume NU’s top post. 37 After having his career path blocked in NU, Alichannelled much of his activities through MUI and ICMI. He resigned from NUin January 1992 in protest over the alleged involvement of Abdurrahman and NU’sSecretary General in a national lottery scandal. 38 Ali was clearly dissatisfied withAbdurrahman’s leadership of NU and was a pro-Suharto figure, who had becomeco-opted into the system. In the mid-1990s, he campaigned for the idea thatNU’s and Muhammadiyah’s constituencies should be unified under the umbrellaof ICMI and MUI. Ali’s proposal stood in direct contrast to Abdurrahman’s viewthat the NU constituency should remain entirely independent from stateinterference or from membership of corporatist organisations. We could takeAli’s campaign on behalf of MUI and ICMI as one of his, perhaps state-backed,attempts to erode Abdurrahman’s hold of the NU constituency as well aspromotion of his own leadership ambitions. 39 Ali became head of ICMI’scouncil of advisers in 1995 and chairman of MUI in 1998.Cipasung Congress and Post-congress DevelopmentsSuharto was determined to remove Abdurrahman from the leadership of NU andreplace him with a more pliable figure. He did this to secure his own unanimousendorsement for re-election as president in 1998, and Abdurrahman had refusedto give this endorsement. Suharto responded by bringing ICMI, Golkar, andother state interests behind his campaign to unseat Abdurrahman and replace himwith a state-backed candidate. These efforts coincided with initiatives by ICMI,MUI, and Golkar to penetrate pesantren and mobilise support (discussed above).The campaign to upset Abdurrahmarf s chairmanship was underway at the NU’s29 th Congress in Cipasung, West Java, in December 1994. The Army Chief-of-Staff for Social-Political Affairs, Gen. Hartono (a Golkar and ICMI partisan), theICMI Chairman Habibie, the Chairman of Golkar Harmoko, the Minister ofReligious Affairs, and Suharto’s daughter Siti Rukmana (deputy chair of theGolkar board) were some of the senior state officials who backedAbdurrahman’s rivals for the chairmanship. Fahmi Saifuddin, Chalid Mawardiand the wealthy businessman, Abu Hasan (the latter two being former membersof the Cipete faction), were the most credible pro-government candidates putforward against Abdurrahman’s re-nomination in a race that deeply polarised theNU constituency. 40In a determined campaign to unseat Abdurrahman, state officials and segmentsof the armed forces combined the offer of inducements to, and intimidationagainst, NU members at the congress in order to garner a vote against theincumbent. Despite the concerted efforts to unseat him, Abdurrahman survivedthe attempt by winning re-election to the NU chairmanship by a slim margin(174 votes to 142) against Abu Hasan, the strongest alternative candidate. Arival NU board was set up under Abu Hasan’s leadership, but the board failed to