Yusril Ihza Mahendra - Reformasi

Reformasi

With Suharto's fall from power, opportunity opened up for Yusril to get himself into politics and air his views. As a politician, Yusril was very much influenced by Natsir and called for the Jakarta Charter to be included in the Constitution. In the 1945 Constitution, Article 29 Section 1 originally read "The State is based on the belief in God with the obligation to obey Sharia law for its adherers". However, the Section was edited to "The State is based on the belief in God" to make it sound more secular.

To achieve his political goal, Yusril formed PBB on 17 July 1998 and was elected as its first Chairman. In June 1999, PBB participated in the 1999 Legislative Elections and came 6th with 2.84% of the votes.

In the lead up to the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) General Session, PBB joined forces with the other Muslim Parties to form the Central Axis. As the MPR assembled in 1999, the Central Axis had their support behind National Awakening Party's Abdurrahman Wahid with their opponents being Golkar's President Habibie and the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle's (PDI-P) Megawati Sukarnoputri. When Habibie's accountability speech was not accepted, he refused to run and the Presidential race came down to Wahid and Megawati. Yusril, perhaps worried that Wahid might also drop out of the race had himself nominated as a Presidential Candidate. However, Yusril would drop out of the race with little time to spare before the election process and Wahid would emerge as the President.