“So far, no Islamist party has won a majority of the popular vote in any of the Muslim countries where reasonably clean elections are held. Often, the Islamist share of the votes has declined. In Malaysia, the Islamists have never gone beyond 11% of the popular vote. In Indonesia, the various Islamist groups have never collected more than 17%. The Islamists’ share of the popular vote in Bangladesh declined from an all-time high of 11% in the 1980s to around 7% in the late 1990s. Even in once-Taliban dominated Afghanistan, Islamist groups, including former members of the Taliban, have managed to win only around 11% of the popular vote on the average.”
The above is excerpt from an interesting article “Why Islamists Don’t Win Elections”
by Amir Taheri from the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Wall Street Journal.
Observers of Islam politics in Indonesia would easily agree with the basic argument of the article: “Want to win votes in a Muslim country in Asia? Keep your Islamic agenda hidden”. Indonesia’s Partai Keadilan Sosial has significantly toned down its Islamic agendas, and made the party membership much more inclusive than before.
In a recent seminar at The University of Tasmania that I participated, we discussed a point raised by Dr Dirk Tomsa and Associate Professor Pam Allen about the remarkable Islamization of contemporary life in Indonesia coupled by the unimpressive success of Islamist parties in elections.
While the above mentioned article explains many important things, new questions follow and remain unanswered, such as why Muslims like to live in an Islamic society but under a secular state. Comments are most welcome below.