A colleague of mine who is an activist, a cadre, and a high-class staff of the Jogja-based Muslimat NU sent me a modified photo of a pair mate for the president 2024, Anies-Imin, sometime in October saying that the unification of Muhammadiyah-NU, HMI-PMII, would make Indonesia glorified to enter into Indonesia Gold 2045. I replied instantly that it wouldn’t be possible for Muhammadiyah – NU or HMI – PMII to be known to compete with each other in almost all aspects of life in this country, ranging from domestic to nation-state issues and from religious to social ones.
Anies,
portrayed as a modernist Muslim, known to be a Muhammadiyah follower and an alumni
of HMI, would draw his support from Muhammadiyah and HMI. He gained 41.9% from
Muhammadiyah compared to 41.6% by Prabowo, a slight margin of 0.3%. This shows
that Anies could not convince them and thus capitalize on his rhetorics of change
that Muhammadiyah's followers would vote for him. The slight margin of 0.3%
would suggest that Anies failed to draw strong support from Muhammadiyah.
Paired with
Muhaimin, known as the chair for the PKB and thus cadres of NU, Anies would
also get support from NU. The pair unfortunately could only win 21.8% of the NU
traditional followers. This is a huge jab to them for Prabowo-Gibran could draw
55.8%, twice more than Anies-Muhaimin could get.
Those figures show that the attempt to unify Muhammadiyah and NU had failed. The competition between these two Islamic organizations has reached even daily life not excluding the principal of the schools from elementary to high school and higher education. The case is also correct to emphasize the harsh competition between the two in the political arena and even economic matters. If you want to be successful in your career, in politics for example, it is not rare to be asked whether you are affiliated with either Muhammadiyah or NU.