•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

When the dust settles on the spate of scandals surrounding the Prosperous Justice Party, its focus for future political campaigns may have to shift to what it can offer voters besides moral platitudes.

Political analysts on Monday warned that if the Islamic-based party, also known as the PKS, did not want to see its voter base diminish, a new strategy was needed because its high moral values were under threat from a series of sex and corruption scandals dogging its members.

The call comes on the heels of the resignation of Arifinto, a PKS legislator who was photographed watching a pornographic movie on his tablet computer during a plenary session at the House of Representatives. Anis Matta, the party’s secretary general, was also allegedly implicated in a sex video posted on Twitter in February, although he was later cleared by police of any involvement.

Yusuf Supendi, the party’s ousted co-founder, meanwhile, has accused senior PKS officials of embezzling Rp 10 billion ($1.2 million) from the party’s funds and others of having polygamous marriages that were not approved by the party’s Shariah Council.

Hanta Yuda, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute, said the PKS’s tough talk on graft and upholding moral values had previously brought the party much success at the polls.

But today, with several of its lawmakers entangled in alleged corruption and sex scandals, he said the PKS should be bracing itself for a voter backlash.

“The impact is going to be big enough, I think, to affect the PKS’s future electoral situation,” he said. “The party must clean up its image. Morality is not the key for political parties anymore, it’s performance. Morality should just be a part of the package.”

Hanta said that while the PKS might still retain voters, it was bound to face growing criticism those who had cast their ballots for the party expressly because of their morality and antigraft campaigns.

“Those educated people who voted for the PKS, they’re disappointed to see the state it’s in now,” he said.

“A real improvement in performance is needed, with PKS members in local administrations fighting for the rights of the people instead of issuing morality-based regulations.”

Morality, according to Ahmad Norma Permata, an associate researcher from the Maarif Institute, was not the leading factor for most people deciding which political parties to support. “The most important thing is their work, their performance. What they do for the people,” he said.

Ahmad, who wrote a doctoral thesis on the PKS, said Arifinto’s case would damage the PKS’s image among educated voters. He said the party would also no longer get respect from fellow lawmakers and politicians. “They will think: ‘Ah, the PKS is just the same as the rest of us.’ Remember, all the PKS’s talk about morality and corruption contributed a lot to its voter base.”

Surahman Hidayat, head of PKS’s Shariah Council, however, insisted that neither the party’s voter base nor its membership would be impacted by the scandals. He said the PKS was prepared to work even harder for the people to make up for all the recent controversies.

He also stressed that the PKS would never stop campaigning on high moral and antigraft platforms. “That’s more than jargon. Morality and fighting corruption are PKS principles,” he said.

Arifinto was one of the founders of the PKS back when it was named the Justice Party (PK). “I have heard that Pak Arifinto was also one of the founders of Sabili magazine,” Ahmad said. “And heard rumors that he also mobilized people to support Islamic issues.”

Fahri Hamzah, a senior PKS politician, said that the people had attached the morality label to the PKS and advanced its antipornography drive, not the party itself.