The Ulama and the 2024 Indonesian Presidential Election: The Missing Voice of Conscience?

A week after Indonesia’s elections on 14 February 2024, former Muhammadiyah and Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI) chairman Din Syamsuddin led a gathering of about a hundred scholars and intellectuals to reject the election outcome. They contended that the election witnessed “structured, systematic, and massive” fraud and accused President Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi) government and the state apparatus of intimidating, pressuring, and threatening the electorate to vote for the Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka pair. Based on quick count results from major pollsters, with the final official results due on 20 March, Prabowo and Gibran will likely win the election in one round as they appear to have secured about 58 per cent of the popular national vote. While Din and his scholar comrades are still rhetorically calling for a reversal of Prabowo’s and Gibran’s presumed victory, the general disinterest of the other ulama for this initiative suggests a saturation of religious intellectuals and leaders. Ironically, their authority is more fragmented despite their greater number.

Several strong concerns regarding potential ethical violations and even electoral fraud emerged during and after the election. Weeks prior to voting day, various non-governmental organisations questioned Jokowi’s partiality towards Prabowo-Gibran, especially after clear behind-the-scenes manoeuvring so that Gibran could qualify for the vice presidential nomination. These manoeuvres garnered criticisms from various sections of society, including the Coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations for Electoral Justice and the All-Indonesian Students Executive Council Alliance. The Civil Society Coalition also encouraged voters to impose ethical sanctions on the Prabowo-Gibran pair. Yet these criticisms will not move the needle where the vote count is concerned.

Some public discontent has emerged following many allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation. These include anecdotal reports of local leaders using subtle persuasion or direct threats to mobilise voters for specific candidates, and inconsistencies or logistical problems with overseas polling stations which, for instance, necessitated a re-vote in Kuala Lumpur. Consequently, one Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) nationwide survey involving 1,211 respondents aged 17 (Indonesia’s voting age) and above found that the level of public trust in the honesty and fairness of the recent election starkly declined by almost 20 per cent (from 94.3 to 76.4 per cent) within a week after voting day.

The voices of Indonesia’s prominent Muslim intellectuals and ulama on these political issues were subdued throughout the election period. They appeared fragmented during campaigning and voiceless amid the ongoing post-election discourse within Indonesian civil society. The Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), the largest body of Muslim intellectuals in Indonesia, issued a statement advocating an honest and fair election. However, the ICMI has remained silent on Jokowi’s partiality and the fraudulent or unethical practices during the electoral process. Other prominent Muslim personalities such as Quraish Shihab, Indonesia’s senior Quran exegete and writer who was briefly religious affairs minister, prefer to speak about the role of political leaders in abstract in sermons. Shihab has not singled out any individual in his recent speeches.

The silence of the Indonesian Muslim intellectuals and ulama during and after the 2024 election contrasts sharply with the considerable influence the group held in the past in rallying the masses and shaping the country’s political discourse.

Yet several other prominent religious figures have taken sides. On one side, conservative personalities and groups like Abdul Somad, the Ijtima’ Ulama movement and the controversial Habib Rizieq support Anies-Muhaimin. On the other, Gus Miftah and Habib Luthfi support Prabowo-Gibran. Others like Tuan Guru Bajang Zainul Majdi voiced his support for the pair that received the least votes, Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD, while Guru Sekumpul of Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan remained neutral – his followers are mainly limited to Borneo residents.

The silence of the Indonesian Muslim intellectuals and ulama during and after the 2024 election contrasts sharply with the considerable influence the group held in the past in rallying the masses and shaping the country’s political discourse. For instance, the late Nurcholish Madjid’s (Cak Nur) words, “Islam Yes, Islamic Party No!” discouraged the use of Islamic rhetoric in politics throughout Indonesia’s 1980s and 1990s. The late former president Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), who was a longtime leader of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), was the voice of moderate and humanist Islam particularly during the later Suharto years. The late Ali Yafie, a prominent NU figure and past MUI chairman, courageously advised Suharto to resign amidst student protests during the 1998 reformasi (reform) movement.  

The only way to challenge Prabowo’s and Gibran’s victory is political: his opponents can do this either through the legislative assembly (DPR) members exercising their hak angket, that is, the right to conduct a probe of alleged electoral fraud, or through filing a dispute through the constitutional court, which Anies has declared he would do.

In this sense, Din’s move against Prabowo-Gibran is futile yet reveals the dilution of his and others’ authority and respect for Islamic intellectualism in Indonesia. The post-election gathering that Din led appears weak when seen against the words and actions of the great Islamic figures and thinkers of Indonesia’s past. Furthermore, Din and his peers have not garnered the support of other prominent personalities across organisational or political/party lines, which is imperative when calling for an effective national re-assessment of the electoral outcome. What is more, the other Islamic scholars led by Din are not prominent and wield little influence on the wider community.

This lack of support for Din’s cause shows that his view does not resonate with most Muslim intellectuals and ulama in Indonesia. Perhaps, Indonesia no longer has Islamic leaders who are as authoritative as Gus Dur or Cak Nur, to rally the masses for a righteous cause at the national level.

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