These parties draw members from the modernist mass organization Muhammadiyah, which finds its allegiance tugged by former head Amien Rais. His National Mandate Party, or PAN, is officially an open, secular party, but in practice is filled, especially at the lower levels, with Muhammadiyah loyalists. For many Muslims, NU leader Abdurrahman Wahid is the obvious choice for president. There are, however, rival NU parties - the Partai Kebangkitan Umat and the Partai Nahdlatul Umat, both of which can be translated as the Community Awakening Party. There are regional variations as well - the PKB, as NU's largest party, is strong in NU bases such as the northern and eastern parts of Java.
Modernist parties derive their support mainly from West Java and beyond.
The fact that the Muslim parties are so splintered makes it virtually impossible to push through an Islamic agenda. If, for example, the modernists should later in parliament push regulations requiring Muslims to follow the Islamic law more strictly, the move will likely be opposed by the traditionalists, who feel Islam is a personal matter of faith. The splits are out in the open now that all the parties, both Muslim and secular, are struggling to secure votes. In the case of Muslim groups, since a large number of parties are fighting over the same slice of the electorate, the competition is extremely intense and, given the ideological and emotional ties of Islam, particularly combative. Three days later, there was another PKB-PPP incident in the PPP stronghold of Jepara, Central Java, which left four people dead.