by Sadanand Dhume
Wall Street Journal Asia
April 15, 2009

Against a backdrop of missile launches on the Korean peninsula and violent protests in Thailand those looking for a spot of calm in Asia may alight on an unlikely candidate: Indonesia. Largely peaceful parliamentary elections last week — the third consecutive free polls since the end of Gen. Suharto’s 32-year rule in 1998 — highlight the strides made by a country that not so long ago was in danger of becoming a byword for chaos and random violence, a Southeast Asian Nigeria or Bangladesh.

Most heartening of all has been the Indonesian electorate’s affirmation of its legendary moderation. The top three parties in the incoming parliament — President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party, former president Megawati Sukarnoputri’s left-leaning Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and Suharto’s former political machine, Golkar — are all nonsectarian. They stand for the country’s founding ideology, the live-and-let-live doctrine of Pancasila, and draw their supporters from each of the country’s five major faiths. Islam-based parties saw their cumulative vote-share shrink to about 20% from 38% five years ago. Mr. Yudhoyono, known as the “gentle general” for his military past and avuncular manner, is the overwhelming favorite to win July’s presidential election.

The most dramatic example of political Islam’s diminished appeal is the tepid performance of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Indonesia’s version of the Muslim Brotherhood. PKS seeks to order society and the state according to the medieval precepts enshrined in shariah law. The party, which held steady with about 8% of the national vote, failed to make the gains it had expected after a string of dramatic local and provincial election wins in recent years. To put things in perspective, in the outgoing parliament PKS and the Democrat Party were virtually tied; in the incoming one the president’s party, which deftly stole PKS’s signature issue, a promise of graft free governance, will seat about three times as many members as the Islamists.

This gives Mr. Yudhoyono much more room for maneuver in both choosing a running mate and cobbling together a stable coalition in parliament that allows him to govern. Five years ago, when the Democrat Party won only 7% of the parliamentary vote, Mr. Yudhoyono was forced to rely on PKS support in parliament. This time around he’s in a position to call the shots by excluding PKS from the governing coalition and denying it the chance to grow under the umbrella of state power.

Indeed, though PKS may be down, only the most reckless optimist can claim that its political future is threatened. The decline of other Islam-oriented parties makes PKS the fourth-largest party in parliament, a notch up from its previous fifth place, and far from shabby for a party that didn’t even exist 11 years ago. In Indonesia’s decentralized polity, PKS controls several important governorships, including those of the populous provinces of West Java and North Sumatra.

In the short term, striking a deal with PKS may be expedient — it’s natural for any politician to eye the party’s disciplined voter base — but in the long term, as the experience of Pakistan and Sudan, to take just two examples, shows, trucking with Islamists is a high-risk gamble. As highlighted in a path breaking new report by the Libforall Foundation, an anti-extremist nonprofit co-founded by former president Abdurrahman Wahid, PKS continues its effort to infiltrate mainstream Islamic organizations and to replace Indonesia’s tolerant homespun Islam with an arid import from the Middle East. It will take much more than a single election to dent the party’s access to Saudi funding and its network of supportive mosques and madrassas, or to diminish the appeal for many newly educated Indonesians of its starkly utopian message: Islam is the solution.

Since it first burst into prominence five years ago, PKS has done little to dispel fears that it is the dark bloom at the heart of Indonesia’s democratic flowering. Party leaders have long been among the most outspoken supporters of Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Last year PKS piloted through parliament a harsh antipornography bill that legalizes vigilante violence and forces non-Islamic communities to conform to conservative Islamic norms. The party’s attitudes toward women’s rights are captured by its obsession with dress codes and outspoken support for polygamy. In a country long famous for a pragmatic foreign policy, PKS stands out for its emotive appeals to pan-Islamic causes such as Palestine. Among the party rank and file, Sept. 11, 2001 conspiracy theories, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism are rampant.

In a democratic country, PKS has its place — banning it would be counterproductive and illiberal. But if Indonesia is to fulfill its potential as a moderate and modern Muslim-majority democracy then mainstream politicians must not make the mistake of legitimizing the party. In the short term, this means scotching rumors that the party may snag the vice-presidential spot on President Yudhoyono’s ticket. In the long term, it means recognizing the sobering reality that Indonesia’s long struggle with radical Islam is not about to end any time soon. That struggle will be won not by embracing PKS, but by working to banish it to the margins of political life, where it belongs.

[Mr. Dhume is a Washington-based writer and the author of “My Friend the Fanatic: Travels With a Radical Islamist” (Skyhorse Publishing, 2009)]