PKS loses its Islamist sting in Prabowo’s coalition government

The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the country’s largest Islamist party, isn’t going to change course any time soon following changes in its leadership this month, as it has chosen instead to reaffirm its loyalty to the government of President Prabowo Subianto until his term ends in 2029.

The first order of business for new PKS president Almuzzammil Yusuf, 60, is to meet with Prabowo and reiterate the party’s commitment to the coalition government, of which it is a member. But this means toning down the Islamist rhetoric that has been its key characteristic.

“For PKS, the success of Prabowo’s programs is the happiness of the people of Indonesia,” Almuzzammil told reporters. More than a week since he was appointed as the party’s 2025-2030 president, he still has been unable to personally convey this message to the President, whose office has cited his busy schedule.

Almuzzammil is the party’s latest senior politician to be appointed president by the Shura Council, its highest decision-making body, at a meeting on June 3-4 in Jakarta. The meeting also resulted in the election of Mohamad Sohibul Iman, 59, the former PKS president from 2015-2020, as the head of the powerful council.

PKS uses the title “president” for the head of its executive board, not “chairman”. The position rotates every five years and, with the exception of its first president, none has served more than five years. The members of the Shura Council, mostly elderly, collectively hold the real power, while the president is the party’s public face.

Last year, PKS accepted Prabowo’s offer to join his government, even though it had supported former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan in the two-horse presidential election in February 2024. It was rewarded with a cabinet seat.

But following the waves of mass layoffs in recent months, Yassierli’s position as manpower minister has become tenuous. His name is often cited among cabinet members primed for replacement in the next reshuffle, if and when that happens.

Responding to journalists’ questions about a potential reshuffle, Almuzzammil gave the standard answer often parroted by political parties: The President has the prerogative to change his cabinet.

By joining Prabowo’s big-tent coalition government, which comprises seven of the eight parties in the House of Representatives, PKS risks losing its sting, especially with the President insisting on complete loyalty, or else.

When it played opposition to the government of president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2014-2024, the party was still able to push its Islamist agenda, leaving its mark on several pieces of legislation, including the new Criminal Code. PKS was also able to hold its ground in both the 2019 and 2024 elections, keeping its share of votes above 8 percent despite internal dissension that led to the resignation of several leaders.

Founded in 1998 by Islamic ideologues, PKS largely draws its inspiration from Egypt-based Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet for strategic reasons, PKS has downplayed its main objective of establishing an Islamic state and introducing sharia when it began contesting the general elections in 1999.

No widespread support for the Islamist agenda exists across voters, even among Muslims who make up 88 percent of the country’s population, estimated at 285 million as of this year. Still, up to 25 percent of voters have consistently cast their ballots for Islamic-leaning parties in the six democratic elections held since the 1998 downfall of strongman Soeharto.

PKS has emerged as the largest party that uses Islamist slogans, but it soon learned that voter support had hardly increased and its gains had been at the expense of other Islamist parties. The 2024 elections marked the first time the United Development Party (PPP), the oldest Islamist party, failed to win House seats since its establishment in 1973.

Even as the nation has become more conservative over the past decade, PKS failed to win new converts, as the majority of the voting population, including Muslims, have voted for secular nationalist parties like the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party and Prabowo’s Gerindra Party, which ranked third for most votes last year.

Given the trend from one election to another, the likelihood of an Islamist party winning the polls is next to zero. For now, PKS has to be content with either playing the opposition role, as it did in 2014-2019, or being a junior coalition partner.

PKS has not decided on who it wants to back in the 2029 presidential election, which is the purview of the Shura Council. It might support Prabowo’s reelection should he decide to run again, but the party’s new leadership will also be talking to Anies, who Almuzzaamil has described as a “brother of PKS”. It also has the option of nominating a candidate from its own ranks, following the Constitutional Court’s decision to eliminate the presidential nomination threshold.

For now, it is keeping all its options open, as much depends on the political landscape in 2029.