FROM MASYUMI TO PKS: THE TRANSFORMATION OF ISLAMIC POLITICAL PARTIES IN INDONESIA

Abstrak

Islamic political parties in Indonesia have shifted markedly in form and strategy since independence, yet their electoral weight has not kept pace with the size of the Muslim electorate. This study traces that transformation through a qualitative library research design, combining historical-biographical and political analysis of party documents, archival records, and secondary literature from the independence period through the post-Reform era. The findings identify three distinct phases: a rigid, formally Islamic orientation under the Old Order (Masyumi, Nahdlatul Ulama); forced institutional fusion into the United Development Party under the New Order; and a fragmented but adaptively pragmatic landscape after Reform, populated by PKS, PKB, PPP, PAN, and PBB. Across these phases, Islamic parties have secured real legislative gains, including the Pesantren Law, sharia-economy regulation, and labor protections, but remain constrained by ideological pragmatism, traditionalist-modernist fragmentation, competition from nationalist parties with Islamic wings, and a persistent tilt toward symbolic moral politics over concrete socio-economic policy. The study concludes that Islamic party survival in Indonesia's democracy depends less on doctrinal purity than on the capacity to translate religious identity into substantively responsive policy.