Indonesian Muslim students bend low and kiss their teachers' bejewelled fingers, sit cross-legged at their feet under shady trees and stare at them in awe as they recite Arabic texts.
The devoted relationship between Muslim students and their respected teachers - known as kyais - has moved beyond religious instruction to political guidance. The 7,000 powerful Muslim preachers in the electorate of East Java could hold Monday's national election result in their hands.
The most influential kyai on the strongly Muslim Madura Island is Kyai Alawi Muhammad, who is also the key figure in the United Development Party (PPP). The party is one of 48 competing in the country's first multi-party election since 1955.
Kyai Alawi commands a boarding school of 1,500 male students in the grassy outskirts of Sampang. Some 1,000 of the students are voting age, and most of them have enthusiastically enrolled for the elections.
When not praying or studying, the students run around the dusty grounds of the traditional school in chequered sarongs and white Muslim caps. They toss prayer mats over their shoulders when the midday call to prayer rings out.
The 75-year-old Kyai Alawi, who owns two petrol stations in Madura, sugar plantations in East Java and large tracts of land elsewhere, denies that he influences his students politically.
"For me, I am a Muslim so I automatically choose PPP. My students are free to choose whichever party they want," said the kyai, who is now seen as antireform because of his links with the military and the former government.
Kyai Alawi's students, aged from six to 30 years, know the Koran inside out and can read Arabic fluently, but they have few books, no computers and little knowledge about the modern world. They do, however, have definite ideas about which political party they prefer.
"We love the PPP, it's the only party!" shout the younger boys as they skip down the road between classes, mimicking the influence of their teacher. Senior pupils such as 28-year-old Ahmad Maimur Zuber admit they will vote for the PPP because of Kyai Alawi's influence.
The party was set up under the government of the former authoritarian president Suharto in the 1970s as an amalgam of Muslim parties.
"Why should I support any other party? I am the student of a PPP kyai," said Mr Zuber, sitting on the ground of the school's poorly stocked library.
One of the country's top kyais, Abdurrahman Wahid, is head of the other big Muslim Party, the National Awakening Party. Mr Wahid agrees that the kyais and their pupils are an important voting bloc. "The boarding schools are a political base for all Islamic institutions, but people are ignoring them, so that's why they are following my party," said Mr Wahid after a party rally.
Mr Wahid, a presidential candidate, says he wants to concentrate the votes of his 40 million strong national Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, into one political party so its strength can be felt in the parliament.
The political use of Islam is not easy to miss in East Java, where green party flags are strung across the front of mosques and portraits of party leaders beam down from minarets. Mr Wahid and Kyai Alawi are now competing for votes on Madura Island and in other Islamic strongholds.
Hundreds of kyais who supported the state-backed PPP under Suharto's presidency are now flocking back to Mr Wahid's group, which was a powerful political party in the 1950s.
East Java, home to 34 million people, is one of the most complex electorates in Indonesia because of its blend of Islam and local Javanese culture. In the 1955 elections two major parties competed for the hearts of East Javanese: the communists and the traditionalist Muslims.
Back then the powerful Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) controlled the central territory of Madiun and Blitar, the burial place of Sukarno, the country's first president. It pledged a package of radical land reform in the early 1960s that tried to take land away from the powerful Muslim preachers and hand it over to the poor Javanese.
After 32 years of depoliticisation under Mr Suharto's rule and memories of the killing of up to one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese and Christians, not much has changed.
Observers say they can pick the election winner in this province by looking at history. The peasants are still dirt poor, the Muslim preachers still hold large packages of land and great power over the coastal populations.
Out in the dry countryside the people are practical and also poor. Tricycle drivers find the best use for party flags is to strap to their vehicles to keep sun off their passengers.
"We hope this election will make a difference to us little people," said tricycle driver Ucok in the town of Lamongan.
History suggests that, at least in the short term, things will in fact remain much the same.
AFP adds:
"Don't forget the June 7 election," a sign near the central market in Dili, East Timor, reminded people yesterday.
They have not forgotten, but many people in East Timor express little interest in voting for candidates in today's polls They say they are looking forward instead to the August 8th popular consultation that will be held here under UN supervision to determine whether the territory becomes independent or an autonomous part of Indonesia.