Barnabas Aid - International Headquarters River Street, Pewsey, Wilthire. Phone: +44 1672 565030 Latitude: 51 deg 23 min 18 sec N Longitude: 1 deg 45 min 48 sec W .
Home
News
Archives
Sharp drop in support for Islamic politi...

Email:

Sharp drop in support for Islamic political parties in Indonesia

To

Email address:
Separate multiple addresses with a comma (,). Maximum of 10

From

Your name:
Your email address:
Security test:
Please enter the numbers that appear here in the box below.
 refresh captcha
CAPTCHA Image
Security code:

Details provided here will never be used in any other context

Published: 10:00 GMT Daylight Time - Friday 06 July 2012

Sharp drop in support for Islamic political parties in Indonesia

Country/Region: Indonesia, South and East Asia

A survey in Indonesia has revealed a sharp drop in support for Islamic political parties in the country, in a welcome development for the Christian minority.

Indonesian-parliament-Jakarta_4X3.jpg
The Indonesian parliament in Jakarta
CTBTO / CC BY 2.0

The National Survey Institute announced on 26 June the results of the poll, which found that only 15% of respondents backed the four main Islamic parties: the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), National Mandate Party (PAN), United Development Party (PPP) and National Awakening Party (PKB).

This is a sharp decline from the 2009 elections, where the same parties gained 29% of the total vote. In 1998, they enjoyed as much as 38% of the vote.

The survey showed growing support for political moderates, with Golkar the most popular party, followed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the Democratic Party.     

A spokesman for one of the Islamic parties, PKS, said that Indonesians might be reluctant to vote for Islamic parties because of fears that they are courting extremism.

The drop in support for Islamic political parties is a welcome development for Christians in Indonesia, who have suffered extensive violence and harassment at the hands of Islamists, who want to eliminate Christianity and bring the entire country under sharia law. Since 2003 at least half of Indonesia’s 32 provinces have enacted their own variations of sharia in response to Islamist pressure.

Their violent campaign reached its peak around the turn of the century with a full-scale programme of ethnic cleansing in some areas; an estimated 30,000 Christians were killed and about half a million driven out.

Today Christians in Indonesia are not subjected to the same level of violence, but they do continue to be targeted by Islamists. Churches face much opposition and harassment, and many have been forcibly closed or destroyed.

Christians have not always experienced such hostility in Indonesia; until the 1980s, the country was a model of good relations between Islam and Christianity. When the country gained its independence in 1949, the new nation was founded on the doctrine of Pancasila, which includes belief in one God and a commitment to national unity and communal peace. For many decades this ideology helped to promote stability, peace and equality between different religious communities.

Indonesia is now a long way from those days, but declining support for political Islam is a sign that the country wants to adopt a more moderate position.

Islamists have been allowed to punch well above their weight in recent years, because the authorities and other Muslims are afraid of them. The challenge for the government now is to stand up to the Islamists and resist their demands, which do not appear to reflect the democratic wishes of the Indonesian people.

Help us: Share this article

Email:

Sharp drop in support for Islamic political parties in Indonesia

To

Email address:
Separate multiple addresses with a comma (,). Maximum of 10

From

Your name:
Your email address:
Security test:
Please enter the numbers that appear here in the box below.
 refresh captcha
CAPTCHA Image
Security code:

Details provided here will never be used in any other context

christian, persecution, charity, church, persecuted, sookhdeo, Islam

Other articles

Latest Emergency

/_images_files/content/article_files/Pakistan/201306/Building-work-4X3.jpg

Follow Barnabas

or

receive news & appeal emails as they are published

From Twitter

From Twitter_icon

  • Four converts to Christianity jailed, two others given suspended sentence, amid Iranian presidential elections http://ow.ly/m6BPh Mon, Jun 2013 17:04

  • #Christian killed in Egypt church attack; Christian businesses destroyed http://bit.ly/190VjKT Thu, Jun 2013 14:49

  • India: Dad/son beaten in prayer meeting.Indones: President gets relig freedom award. Viet: 8 from unreg church jailed http://bit.ly/15OtRO9 Wed, Jun 2013 11:06

  • "Reign of terror" against #Christians, Central African Republic "raising a Bible Wed, Jun 2013 03:19

Read more...

Daily prayer

Daily prayer_icon

  • In another chilling sign of Egypt’s move towards becoming an Islamic state, it was announced in March that a religious police force had been established to uphold Muslim morals. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice shares its name with the notorious religious police of Saudi Arabia. For some months previously, vigilante Salafist gangs had been operating as self-appointed enforcers of morals, raiding shops and harassing staff and customers. The Christian community is concerned that it may now be subjected to the demands of sharia law. Pray that this will not happen and that the Islamisation of Egyptian society will be checked and then reversed. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed 3 hours ago

  • Christian girls in Egypt are extremely vulnerable to being kidnapped by Salafists who forcibly convert them to Islam and marry them to Muslim men against their will; over 500 have been victims of this heartless campaign since the revolution of January 2011. The Association of Victims of Abduction and Enforced Disappearance (AVAED), an Egyptian Christian organisation, says that the authorities collude with the Salafists. Give thanks for the safe return of Agape Essam Girgis (13), who was abducted from el-Ameriya on 23 December 2012. Sadly, most cases do not have a happy ending. Pray that the Lord will comfort those families whose daughters are still missing and intervene mightily to deliver the Christian girls from the hands of their captors. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Tue, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Pray for our brothers and sisters in North Africa living in the shadow of militant Islamism. Following the French intervention against Islamist groups who had taken over large parts of Mali, militants attacked a gas facility in Algeria in January and killed 37 people. An Algerian employee who managed to escape said, “We were told that because we were Muslim we would not be killed, and it was only the Christians they were after.” The Islamists associate Christianity with the West, so Christian targets and individuals as well as Western ones are especially vulnerable to attack. Ask that the Lord will protect Christians in the region against violence and the oppressive grip of sharia law. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Mon, Jun 2013 00:00

  • “I had just cooked my last meal, and there was no food in the house, nor money, nor any other way of obtaining grain. Thank the Lord for this aid, which has saved me and my children.” Bâh Kamaté, a Christian widow with six children in Mali, was “completely overwhelmed” when her pastor told her that she was going to receive corn and rice funded by Barnabas. Thousands of Christians fled the north of the country after the Islamist takeover in 2012, and their plight was worsened by food shortages resulting from drought. But praise God that Barnabas has helped to supply food for more than 5,100 Christians, as well as meeting other needs. Pray for His continuing provision for His people as Mali continues to face an uncertain future. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Sun, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Those who become Christians in Laos risk losing everything. A couple from Chumpoy in the Sanamsai district of Attappeu province were thrown out of their village on 23 January for converting to Christianity. Pray for Sakien and his wife Dong, who came to Christ after hearing the testimony of their son and daughter-in-law, Sanien and Pitsamai; they had become Christians after Pitsamai was healed after prayer. Sakien and Dong are currently sheltering in a partially constructed church building in another village; pray that they will either be able to return to their home or find adequate housing elsewhere, and that the Lord will sustain them in their new faith throughout this trial. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Sat, Jun 2013 00:00

Read more...

Quick navigation

© Barnabas Aid 1997 - 2013 All rights reserved.
Barnabas Aid is a registered trade mark