The Half-Hearted Compromise within Indonesian Politics: The Dynamics of Political Coalition among Islamic Political Parties (1999-2019)

Abstract

Political coalition is an everyday business in modern democracy. In Indonesia, coalition happens especially for presidential election, gubernatorial and district head election. The trends also found among Islamic parties. Over time, political dynamics shift does reflect changes happened within broader societal discourse and in turn influence the distribution of Indonesia’s voter base among different political parties. The dynamic is proven to have encouraged the pragmatic formation of coalitions between ideologically-different political parties. The paper analyzes the dynamic of political coalition among Islamic parties in 1999-2019. There are three arguments underlying Islamic parties’ coalition: ideological similarity, political pragmatism, and compromise through ideological similarity and political pragmatism. Ideological coalition is formed with, the similarities between party platforms. Meanwhile, the coalition formed with political pragmatism is mostly to gain political position and advantages. Admittedly, There are also coalitions formed due to combinations of both factors.