REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA – Secretary General of Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) Amirsyah Tambunan defined money politics as giving money or other donation to voters. It commonly happened in an election.
The money was given with a requirement that the voters should choose certain candidates. “The activity was forbidden (haram) as it might cause damages (mafsadar) to religion, nation and state,” he said.
Amirsyah said Allah SWT said in the Holy Quran that money politics was the basic strategy of the unbelievers and hypocrites. It was also a deception to win a competition or battle.
It was written in Surah al-Anfaal verse 36-37: “Indeed, those who disbelieve spend their wealth to avert [people] from the way of Allah . So they will spend it; then it will be for them a [source of] regret; then they will be overcome. And those who have disbelieved - unto Hell they will be gathered. [This is] so that Allah may distinguish the wicked from the good and place the wicked some of them upon others and heap them all together and put them into Hell. It is those who are the losers.”
Amirsyah explained Imam Ibn Katsir in his interpretation said that the verse had a special background of the way Quraisy collected their wealth to fight Moslems. However, it also had a general meaning. Allah let people know that the unbelievers spend their wealth to block Muslim for getting the right paths.
And then, all the wealth was gone. At the end, it became a disappointment and regret to them as they did not get what they wanted to have. They tried to extinguish the light of God by pretending that their words could compete with Allah’s. But, Allah allows the believers won.
Amirsyah remarked that money politics had been stuck out to the unbelievers. All the century, they were typical to deception and money politics. “In this occasion, the fighters needed to reflect and to make people aware that money politics is forbidden,” he said.
Amirsyah left a message that people who struggle in the name of Allah should use logical strategy to win. The believers should have faith that Allah SWT would help them.
Money politics had been discussed in a national meeting of Ulemas and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in 2012. Money politics is clearly stated to be forbidden and the society were appealed to avoid it.
Another verses in the Holy Quran also said “And do not consume one another's wealth unjustly or send it [in bribery] to the rulers in order that [they might aid] you [to] consume a portion of the wealth of the people in sin, while you know [it is unlawful].” (Al-Baqarah[2]:188) The verse implied that wealth should be got in good ways.
In Indonesian positive law, money politics was also forbidden by the state. Law No. 10 in 2016 stated some criminal points included into money politics.
Article 187a said that every person who intentionally conducted an act against the law, promises of gives money or other materials as a reward to Indonesian nationals to directly or indirectly affected the voters to did not use their right or to use it in a certain way, so their vote became invalid, to chose certain candidates or to did not choose certain candidates as mentioned in Article 73 verse 4 was threatened by minimum 36 months of imprisonments and maximum 72 months.
The perpetrators would also be punished with minimum Rp 200 million of fines and maximum Rp 1 billion.
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