Ministers are accused of steering the leadership vote at Nahdlatul Ulama

Nahdlatul Ulama, or NU, has more than 40 million members and runs thousands of pesantren, the Islamic boarding schools. On 31 August it chose the people who will run it until 2031. Abdul Hakim Mahfudz, known as Gus Kikin, took the chair with 472 votes, ahead of Zulfa Mustofa on 262 and Abdussalam Sochib on 261. The sitting chairman, Yahya Cholil Staquf, came fourth with 258. He is the first NU chairman in years to lose a re-election bid, and he says rivals used bribery and forgery, and that several ministers were pushing candidates endorsed by the State Palace.

Writing for Indonesia at Melbourne, Ary Hermawan names who was in the room. At a palace meeting in the second week of August, ministers including Syaifullah Yusuf (social affairs), Nusron Wahid (agrarian affairs) and Nasaruddin Umar (religious affairs) took part in talks about the race. Hermawan also points to reports of a push to hand the choice of leaders back to the AHWA, a small council of senior clerics, instead of a vote by NU's hundreds of local branches. That change would move the decision from a crowd to a handful of men, and a handful is far easier to lobby.

The drift did not start this year. Under Abdurrahman Wahid, NU kept its distance from whoever held power. Under Jokowi it came closer, through a vice-presidential slot, a cabinet seat and a coal mining concession in 2024. The bill for that closeness is now arriving: Gus Yaqut, the former religious affairs minister and Gus Yahya's brother, faces corruption charges over hajj quotas. When the country's largest independent organisation waits to hear what the palace wants, one of the few groups big enough to argue with a president stops arguing.

Why it matters

If your family uses an NU school, clinic or mosque, the new leadership decides how that money is spent and what business the organisation takes on next, including mining. For everyone else the loss is quieter but larger, because NU has been one of the few bodies with enough members to push back on a government and be heard. Watch whether the AHWA proposal actually passes, since that is the change that would be hard to undo.