Indonesian Elections: A Victory for Pancasila Nationalism

Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world. Despite impressive economic development in the last four decades, it is still a fledgling democracy. Indonesia’s national ideology is Pancasila (literal meaning ‘five principles). These five principles are monotheism, humanism, unified nation, representative democracy and social justice. Pancasila is culturally, ethnically and religiously neutral, except perhaps the idea of monotheism (though the number of non-monotheist Indonesians is very small). Despite being predominantly Muslim and Javanese, Indonesian founding fathers chose a non-discriminatory civic nationalism over religious or ethnic nationalism. And Pancasila has been regarded as one of the main reasons of the continued unity of Indonesia.   

After the fall of General Suharto in 1998, many analysts argued that Indonesia is under threat from Islamism. They were afraid Pancasila would be replaced by religious nationalism. Last week, Indonesia held its fourth legislative elections. These elections showed that the news of the demise of Pancasila has been greatly exaggerated.

The 2014 Indonesian elections for its lower house of Parliament, DPR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat) were a victory of the Pancasila in many ways.

First, Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), led by the daughter of Indonesian’s founder Soekarno, won the 2014 DPR elections. Soekarno was the leader who gave Pancasila its shape and popularized it. With PDI-P’s Joko Widodo (called Jokowi), currently, the mayor of Jakarta, most likely to win presidential elections in July, Pancasila’s future is in secure hands. 

Moreover, Golkar, the party formed by General Suharto, took the second largest share of votes. Despite his differences with Soekarno, Suharto never deviated from Pancasila. He rather forcefully imposed it on Indonesians during his three decades in power. The wins of PDI-P and Golkar parties, staunch believers in Pancasila, is good news for Indonesia. 

Source: Indonesian Legislative election 2014 – Provisional results

It is true that Democratic Party of President Yudhoyono, that won DPR elections in 2009, also supported Pancasila. However, lately, it seemed that Democratic Party, despite its commitment to Pancasila, was ready to give in to discriminatory policies against minorities.

Party	Vote share in 2004	Vote share in 2009	Vote share in 2014
PDI-P	19%	14%	19%
Golkar	22%	14.5%	14.3%
Democratic Party	8%	20.9%	9.7%

Secondly, while Islamic parties defied predictions and achieved their traditional 30% share of votes, the division of votes between different Islamic parties was a victory for Pancasila. The fight among the Islamic parties was won by the Pancasila-believing traditional Islamic forces and those believing in Islamism lost. National Awakening Party and National Mandate Party won the elections. The main loser was the Prosperous Justice Party. Modeled on Muslim Brotherhood, it became the biggest Islamic party in the DPR in 2009 and aspired to become one of the big three political parties and the pre-eminent Islamic party in Indonesia. However, 2014 election results crashed its dreams as its vote share dropped. In contrast, all traditional Islamic parties, devotees of Pancasila, increased their vote share as shown below.

Islamic Party	Vote share in 2004	Vote share in 2009	Vote share in 2014
National Awakening Party	11%	4.9%	9.2%
National Mandate Party	6%	6%	7.5%
Prosperous Justice Party	7%	7.9%	6.9%
United Development Party	8%	5.3%	6.7%

Finally, the major change in the elections was the rise of Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), another victory for Pancasila. Gerindra doubled its vote share, from less than 7% in 2009 to around 12% in 2014. It is led by former Special Forces commander and former son-in-law of Suharto, Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto. He intends to use his party’s success to win the July presidential elections. Gerindra, as its name shows, is a nationalist party and Prabowo poses himself as the only true believer in Pancasila. 

So, Pancasila is secure and religious nationalism does not have much scope in Indonesia, in the short term at least.