Hamzah Haz says Muslims are less inclined to vote for Islamic parties now than in the past.

Haz, the chairman of the United Development Party (PPP) and former vice-president, says that before the New Order time Muslim parties won 48% of the vote but that by 2004 this had declined to 20%.

Haz presumably bases these views on the results for the 1955 elections in which Masyumi, a modernist Islamic party, won 21% and the Nahdlatul Ulama, a traditionalist Javanese Islamic party, won 18%, see Islamist vs Secular Parties. A few other small parties of an Islamic bent also won some votes.

By 2004, according to the accepted logic, the overtly Islamic parties won only 20%, that is mainly the PPP, United Development Party, the PKS, Prosperous Justice Party, and the PBB, Crescent Star Party. Haz though fails to really think through what has happened, like, for example, what happened to the 1955 Nahdlatul Ulama vote. Much of this vote now goes to the PKB, a party still based in the Nahdlatul Ulama but no longer considered to be “Islamic”.

The Islamic vote has not necessarily declined, even halved as Haz says, but the leadership of groups such as Nahdlatul Ulama have seemingly changed their view on what role Islam has to play in the state system, or, the way that analysts classify parties has changed.