Introduction

Unlike in previous presidential elections, the 2019 election saw the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, announcing full support for the incumbent, Joko Widodo (Jokowi). NU has about 50 million members and sympathizers, and its former rois ‘am (supreme leader), Ma’ruf Amin, was Jokowi's running mate. As indicated by some analysts, the reasons for NU to do cancut tali wondo (be actively and fully involved) (al Amin 2019, p. 7) in the election are varied. According to the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), NU's involvement was “partly transactional, but its opposition to the Islamists behind Prabowo was deeply ideological” (IPAC 2019). In his ethnographic study of selected pesantrens (traditional Islamic boarding schools) in Java, Edward Aspinall too found that the narratives adopted by some of the kiais (leaders/caretakers of pesantrens) to support Jokowi–Ma’ruf were mostly ideological, most notably in wanting to counteract radical Islam, Salafism, Wahhabism and the Hizbut Tahrir (HTI), the pan-Islamist movement for the revival of the caliphate (Aspinall 2019). Although some subscribed to transactional narratives, the more important argument for these local kiais was ideological. The transactional narratives, which became common narratives within the circle of NU leaders and the elite of the NU-affiliated party, Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (National Awakening Party or PKB, for short), revolved around the number of seats the party's representatives could secure in the cabinet and the upgraded status of NU from being the main beneficiary of government aid to becoming ashabul qoror (decision makers) in government.

To what extent did NU's support contribute to Jokowi's triumph? This is an important question since support for the winning candidate (in this case, Jokowi) becomes a bargaining chip to secure positions in the cabinet or a greater share of the pie in Jokowi's administration. Immediately after the announcement of Jokowi's triumph, some politicians were making claims and counter-claims as to who and which party had played the most critical role in Jokowi's victory. Fachrudin, an NU activist and academic, emphasized the significance of NU's role by outlining the swing in several big pesantrens in East Java (Fachrudin 2019a, 2019b). For Shofia and Pepinsky, Ma’ruf Amin “was a crucial factor in Jokowi's victory” but he “did not create an advantage for Jokowi in NU-dominant districts”.