Religion Blending in the World of Politics

Indonesia has always been known as a beautiful country made up of thousands of islands,

with its most famous island called Bali, and its richness in spice. Behind this beauty is the vile

overshadow of Indonesian politics that is corrupt and unjust. Indonesia is the world’s largest

Muslim-majority country that governs the majority of people’s day to day activities. The thought

of Islamic Politics in Indonesia has various epistemology, either being viewed from political

parties and its politicians or the public, who are both Muslim and non-Muslim. Islamic political

parties and organizations have always won votes and the public’s support. They have capitalized

upon economic grievances and religion, as the role of Islamic party ideology has been used on

economic appeals so that uncertain voters can oversee the parties’ economic policies and just

recognize the parties’ religiosity ties. This is the religion influenced politics that Indonesia is

currently facing.

Indonesia has a current population of 265 million people and 89% of them is a Muslim,

predominantly Sunni, a sect originally founded by Imam Syafii. Indonesia has a lot of political

parties such as PDIP, Golkar, Democrat, PKB, Gerindra, Nasdem, PKS, PAN, Hanura, PBB,

PBR, PPP and PMB. These parties have different ideals and visions, though not all are

influenced heavily by religion as they have their own agenda. Still, many of them are Muslim

and seek to promote Islamic Shari’ah law in Indonesia. According to Muhammad Azhar (2015),

in his study of the reconstruction of epistemology and thoughts of Islam politics in Indonesia,

“partai Islam yang secara jelas mencantumkan atau memiliki idealisme keislaman dan kaitannya

dengan penegakan syariat Islam antara lain: PBB, PPP, PKS, PBR, dan PMB.” [“from

Indonesian to English, Islamic parties which clearly includes or has Islamic idealism and its
relation to the enforcement of Islamic Shari’ah among others are: PBB, PPP, PKS, PBR, and

PMB.”] (2).

A recent political issue here that I would like to address is the blasphemy case of Basuki Tjahaja

Purnama, a Christian and a Governor also known as Ahok which is taken from his Chinese name,

was sentence to two years in prison and lost his re-election in April 2017 to his Muslim rival,

Anies Baswedan, who is now the current governor of Jakarta where he took over last October.

Baswedan was recently fired from his job as the minister of education and culture, due to reasons

of lack of responsibility and priority to his job. With this in mind, why would the people of

Jakarta elect him to be the governor? When Joko Widodo was the governor and Ahok was the

deputy, Jakarta was safe from the constant flooding that occurred every year, from 2012, but now

it’s back to its original flooding state.