"Kids! Kids! The crooks are back!"
Six years after Indonesia's strongman Suharto stepped down, the party which backed his dictatorship for decades seems set for a comeback. Voters in the world's third largest democracy -- disillusioned with the inefficiency, lacklustre growth and still-pervasive graft of post-Suharto Indonesia -- are expected to turn towards his Golkar party in Monday's general election. Confidence in democratic politics has been undermined by politicians themselves and "many ordinary people look through rose-tinted spectacles to the Suharto era as a time of social peace and relative prosperity", the International Crisis Group said in a December report.
Opinion polls show Golkar replacing President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) as the biggest party in the 550-seat parliament, but without an absolute majority. If the PDI-P does fare badly on Monday, Megawati could face a tough battle in July's presidential and vice-presidential election despite her status as daughter of charismatic founding president Sukarno. Megawati, who took office in July 2001, restored macroeconomic stability and quelled ethnic and sectarian conflicts which had flared under the chaotic rule of her predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid. But half the country's 212 million people still live on less than two dollars a day, prices are rising and social services are worsening. Ten million are jobless and 30 million underemployed and economic growth is too low to make a dent in those figures. Foreign investment is still below its level before the 1997-98 economic crisis. Her administration's poor record in fighting endemic corruption has also left it vulnerable. Golkar claims it has changed since the Suharto era, which was marked by massive corruption and gross rights abuses.
| "Oh, yasss! We've learned our lesson!" [Raises eyes piously to heaven] |
However, it still stresses its past record in government, when Indonesia was one of Asia's tiger economies. If it comes second to the PDI-P in the legislative election, Golkar has said it will contest only the vice-presidency in July.
| They'd certainly be better off without Hamzah Haz... |
Presidential contenders do not have to come from the same party as their running mates, raising the prospect of a PDI-P-Golkar coalition. A high turnout is predicted across the world's largest archipelago for what the elections commission describes as the most complex single-day poll ever held by a developing country. Voters will elect the national parliament and a new body called the regional representatives' council as well as provincial and district legislatures. Unofficial results from a computerised count are expected within one or two days. A week after the campaign started, only two percent considered terrorism their main concern, according to one survey. Islamic fundamentalism has little mass appeal in the world's largest Muslim-populated nation. Secular and nationalist parties like Golkar and PDI-P are again expected to claim the lion's share of the vote. Five parties with mainly Islamic agendas have softened their message and shied away from the issue of introducing sharia (Islamic law) -- apparently aware that most of the 147 million voters are more interested in issues like unemployment and fighting graft. Analyst Muhammad Qodari predicted that the five would gain around a combined 14 percent of the votes, similar to 1999. Only the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is expected to buck the trend, more because of its firm stance against corruption than because of religious rhetoric. "We know that people have a sort of phobia about the word sharia," said Ferry Kuntoro, a PKS spokesman.
| Or it could be that they have a good idea what it involves... |
"We are promoting Islamic values. These include good governance. We talk about issues such as how we can establish a government which is clean, honest and caring."
| Give 'em a little bit of power and in a year or two you'll discover that the path to clean, honest and caring government is through shariah. |
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