Kalla Seeks Out Parties Irked by SBY’s VP Pick

---Jakarta Globe, Indonesia

May 14, 2009

Febriamy Hutapea, Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Amir Tejo

Kalla Seeks Out Parties Irked by SBY’s VP Pick

The Golkar Party is intensifying efforts to approach parties disgruntled by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s decision to pick Bank Indonesia Governor Boediono as his running mate in the July presidential election.

Agung Laksono, Golkar’s deputy chairman, said his party had opened communications with the National Mandate Party (PAN), the United Development Party (PPP), and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), all of whom have threatened to leave the coalition led by Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party.

However, Agung admitted that communications between those parties have not entered a higher level. “We still don’t know whether they really want to join us or not. The approach is still on the level of political communication,” Agung said.

“As the first party to announce a presidential and vice presidential ticket, we’re hoping many parties join with us. The larger the better,” said Agung, who is also the House of Representatives’ speaker.

Golkar, who came second in the April legislative election with 14.45 percent of the vote, has nominated chairman Jusuf Kalla as its standard bearer in the presidential election, with Wiranto from the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) as his running mate.

Kalla and Wiranto were scheduled to register their candidacy with the General Elections Commission (KPU) on Wednesday, but they failed to show up.

Rully Chairul Azwar, Golkar‘s deputy secretary general, played down the no-show.

“The reason is just because Kalla wants the registration date to be on his birthday on May 15,” Rully claimed.

That date, Friday, is the last day for presidential and vice presidential candidates have to register with the KPU.

Kalla and Wiranto traveled to Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday to open the Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama’s Social Emergency Response Agency and to visit several Islamic boarding schools.

During the visit, Muslim leaders pledged to support the pair and asked them to disband all deviant Muslim sects, including the heavily- threatened Ahmadiyah.

“We will fully support candidates who are committed to disbanding all deviant religious groups, including Ahmadiyah,” NU’s Hilmi Basaiban said.

Kalla responded by saying that the government and religious leaders should work hand in hand to deal with groups considered deviant. “Religious leaders have to deal with them first, and if those groups cannot be rectified, the government will deal with them,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Jakarta, senior Democrat Anas Urbaningrum said his party would not prevent the PKS from joining the Golkar-Hanura coalition.

He said Yudhoyono and his party had given explanations to its coalition friends over the reason why he picked up Budiono as a vice presidential candidate. “But if any of our coalition friends cannot understand and accept the explanations, we have no right to force them [to stick to the coalition with Yudhoyono and the Democrats],” Anas said.

“But we are also sure that our coalition friends have commitments to placing the national interest over personal or group interests,” he added.

Copyright 2009 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/article/19726.html

Ahmadiyah Ploy By Islamic Parties

Ahmadiyah Ploy By Islamic Parties
---Jakarta Globe

April 03, 2009

Muninggar Sri Saraswati

Ahmadiyah Ploy By Islamic Parties

This week’s campaign sorties saw at least two Islamic parties try to boost their sagging popularity by calling for the government to outlaw Ahmadiyah, a controversial Islamic sect.

The Ahmadiyah, which has been in the country since 1920, has become a rallying point for Muslim hardliners since it was declared a deviant sect by the country’s highest authority on Islam, the Indonesian Council of Ulema, in 2008

Suryadharma Ali, the chairman of the United Development Party, or PPP, the country’s fourth largest party, addressing about 10,000 supporters at a party campaign rally here, called on the government to dissolve Ahmadiyah.

The call came as various l surveys showed that PPP’s popularity was on the wane and that Islamic political parties stood no chances against the secular nationalist ones in the April 9 legislative elections.

Another call for the dissolution of the group came from Yusril Ihza Mahendra, chairman of the supervisory council of the Crescent Star Party, or PBB, another party that had been singled out by surveys as facing a tough battle to win votes this year. Yusril, a former state secretary, told thousands of supporters during his party’s campaign rally in Padang, the capital of West Sumatra Province, that the president should disband Ahmadiyah and order it to form a new religion separate from Islam.

Komaruddin Hidayat, rector of the state-run Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, said targeting Ahmadiyah as an enemy was not relevant to Indonesian voters at present.

“Campaigning for the elections is about offering ideas, not selling an issue to lure voters,” he said. Syamsuddin Haris, a political researcher for the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, or LIPI, said the use of Ahmadiyah in the parties’ campaigns was “stupid” and “unsuitable.”

“It will not be productive in attracting voters,” he said.

Copyright 2009 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/article/15184.html

Indonesia: Islamic Party PPP Woos Hard-Liners

--- Jakarta Globe, Indonesia

National

March 29, 2009

Muninggar Sri Saraswati

Islamic Party PPP Woos Hard-Liners

The United Development Party, or PPP, has resorted to calling on the government to dissolve the controversial Islamic sect Ahmadiyah in an effort to appeal to conservative Muslim voters ahead of the April 9 legislative elections.

PPP chairman Suryadharma Ali, who is a member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s cabinet, asserted during a campaign rally on Sunday that the Ahmadiyah sect had violated Islamic teachings, state-run Antara news agency reported.

“Ahmadiyah must be dissolved because it has disrespected the feelings and honor of Muslims,” he told more than 10,000 party supporters in Jakarta.

Suryadharma said the growing number of cases of insults against religion, be it Islam or the other state-recognized religions, had occurred due to what he called “over-the-line democracy,” where freedoms had been taken too far after the end of the late President Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime.

“It is fine to be free, but every freedom has its limit,” he said.

An Islamic party set up during the New Order era, PPP has seen its popularity suffer over the last decade. In elections in 1997, shortly before the end of Suharto’s rule, it gained 20 percent of the vote, while in 1999 it secured 11 percent, and in 2004, only 8 percent.

The Ahmadiyah community has become a target in recent years for hard-line Muslims, who consider it “heretical.” Attacks against Ahmadiyah escalated in mid-2008, culminating in the government issuing a joint ministerial decree banning its activities, in particular “spreading interpretations and activities that deviate from the principal teachings of Islam.”

There are approximately 200,000 followers of Ahmadiyah who believe the sect’s founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the last prophet of Islam — contradicting one of the fundamental doctrines of orthodox Islam.

Copyright 2009 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/national/article/14564.html

Muslim Groups Demand Police Crackdown on Ahmadiyah Sect

---Jakarta Globe

National - March 21, 2009

Farouk Arnaz

Muslim Groups Demand Police Crackdown on Ahmadiyah Sect

A group of Muslim organizations led by M. Amin Djamaludin, director of the Institute for Research and Studies on Islam, or LPPI, submitted a petition to the National Police on Thursday demanding that police take firm action against Muslim sect Jamaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia, or JAI.

“Ahmadiyah members have broken a joint decree issued by the ministers of religious affairs and home affairs and the attorney general that restricts the sect’s activities,” Amin told reporters after submitting the petition.

After strong pressure from Muslim groups, Home Affairs Minister Mardiyanto, Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni and Attorney General Hendarman Supandji signed a joint decree on June 10 last year banning the sect from propagating its beliefs. The decision sparked debate and criticism from human rights activists who saw the decree as a violation of human rights.

Amin said Ahmadiyah held a general assembly meeting at Manis Lor in Kuningan, West Java Province, on March 6 and 7.

“We also have a document showing that Ahmadiyah still continues to raise funds from its members to build schools and mosques in 2009 and 2010,” said Amin, adding that he was fully supported by the Muslim Lawyers Team, or TPM, and the Islamic Activists Forum, or FUI.

Ahmadiyah, an Islamic congregation founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in India about 100 years ago, was legalized by the Indonesian government in 1953.

The Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, the country’s highest authority on Islam, declared Ahmadiyah a “deviant” religious sect in an edict issued last year.

The MUI claims Ahmadiyah beliefs contravene Islamic teachings, because followers of the group believe that the Prophet Muhammad was not the last prophet. One group of Ahmadis believe that Mirza was the messiah promised in the Koran, while another considers him to be the last Muslim prophet.

Cholil Ridwan, a chairman of the MUI, issued an edict banning people from voting for the incumbent president in the upcoming election because of the government’s failure to outlaw the sect.

The House of Representatives’ religious affairs commission has also said that it would demand that the religious affairs minister take firm action against Ahmadiyah because it was continuing to promote its brand of religion.

Jamaah Ahmadiyah secretary Mubarik said on Thursday that everyone possessed the right to file complaints with the police.

“Following legal procedures is better than using violence like what happened at our campus in Parung,” he said, referring to a September 2005 incident in which hundreds of people vandalized a mosque and cars belonging to the sect’s members. Mubarik also denied suggestions that his group had broken the joint decree.

Insp. Gen. Saleh Saaf, head of the National Police intelligence unit, declined to comment on the petition on Thursday.

Copyright 2009 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/national/article/13779.html