Only the naïve make confident predictions about Indonesian politics

Is the Indonesian election result a fait accompli?

Among the many problems in the complex Indonesian electoral system are its cumbersome procedures. The general election was held on April 9. There were 38 parties contesting and the big ballot paper confused many.

The results came within a month confirming early counts, but the presidential election will not be held till July 8.

If no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote there’ll be a run off on September 8.

Under Indonesian law the people directly elect the president and vice president for a five-year term. In the 2004 election the Democratic Party was a tiny player with less than 8 per cent of the vote. But the electorate wanted the DP leader Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (best known as SBY), not his principal rival Megawati Soekarnoputri, by a margin of three to two.

On the surface it looks as though the ballot in July will be decisive, but only the naïve make confident predictions about Indonesian politics. Although the present president is scoring a whopping 70 per cent in popularity polls against Megawati at 15 per cent, a lot can happen in the next six weeks.

Take, for example, the arrest this month of the Corruption Commission boss, Antasari Azhar, on charges of being involved in the murder of a businessman. Although no one has been convicted, the scandal, which also involves a female golf caddy, has damaged SBY’s clean-up campaign.

Apart from more similar weird happenings the main problem is elector fatigue. If all the pundits are saying SBY will win, why bother to go through the boring and complex process of exercising the democratic process yet again, particularly when it’s not compulsory?

SBY’s Democratic Party doesn’t have the industrial strength machinery to get the voters mobilised when compared to Megawati’s Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) and Golkar.

This is the party created by the late authoritarian president Soeharto and ensured he was elected for 32 years by crushing dissent. Golkar’s candidate for the presidency is Jusuf Kalla, the present vice-president who’s standing against his boss.

Kalla has selected Wiranto, a former general, as his VP candidate. Megawati has also gone to the army for her running mate, picking Prabowo Subianto, another retired general with a questionable human rights record and Soeharto’s former son-in-law.

Curious couplings indeed, but offering a glimpse of the residual influence of the military in Indonesian affairs and the complex undercurrents of ethnicity, religion, history and money that swirl through Indonesian politics.

Westerners dealing with Indonesia have been barracking for SBY, not because he’s been an outstanding leader but because the alternatives look so scary.

During the corrupt rule of General Soeharto that ended in 1998 with the Asian economic crisis, the men with the guns ran the country and just about everything else. The army had seats in Parliament, controlled many businesses, had a major internal security role, oversaw the police and were considered untouchable.

Although the military’s influence is no longer so blatant it’s still a force behind the scenes. Boosters for SBY highlight his academic qualifications (he has a doctorate in agriculture), his urbanity and English skills learned while studying in the US, and his middle ground, ultra-cautious politics. He appears to genuinely believe in democracy and has gravitas on the international stage.

Supporters play down his past as a four-star general before entering politics and his military family. His father, father-in-law and a son were, or are, soldiers.

The April 9 election results closely followed informal exit polls. The Democratic Party ran ahead of all in the crowded pack seeking power, winning 21.04 per cent of the vote. Second was Megawati’s PDIP with 14.52 per cent, a whisker ahead of Golkar mustering 14.23 per cent.

With these results a coalition will have to run the 560-seat Parliament, known as the DPR. How that’s going to be engineered is the critical question, though this time round SBY can bargain from a position of strength.

Optimists say all this shows Indonesians have embraced democracy and are making it work. Those who don’t use rose-coloured glasses note only 61 per cent of the nation’s 171 million eligible electors bothered to vote and millions were disenfranchised through registration stuff-ups.

Fourth in the April election with 8.16 per cent was the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), which kept its Islamic credentials in the background while campaigning hard against corruption. Liberals suspect the party has other agendas and were concerned SBY might pick his running mate from a party that’s against pluralism and women’s rights, and for Sharia law.

Instead SBY cannily selected economist and Bank Indonesia governor Boediono, who studied at the University of Western Australia and Monash, and later in the US. He was Minister of Finance during Megawati’s 2001-2004 presidency.

When introducing Boediono to the miffed PKS the president stressed his partner’s dedication to Islam ahead of his impressive financial skills.

Some PKS members reacted by shifting support to Kalla because SBY’s wife Kristiani, and Boediono’s wife Herawati don’t wear headscarves. The sexist sub-text was clear: the men are inadequate Muslims unfit to run the country because they can’t control their wives.

Critics of SBY’s administration during the past five years often overlook the huge problems he faced and give insufficient weight to his skills in keeping the political system intact, the economy on course and the nation relatively safe.

In 2004 SBY campaigned for the nation’s top job with businessman Jusuf Kalla, thereby binding Golkar into the government. Golkar gave SBY the numbers on the floor of Parliament, but the compromises required eroded much of his authority.

Megawati, 62, is a lacklustre candidate famous for being aloof and believing she deserves to have the job again just because her dad was the country’s first president. She is widely regarded as being a tool of the military.

Kalla, 67, has been an effective vice-president in the past five years and was instrumental in settling the long-running civil war in Aceh. As a prominent businessman he gave the administration credibility with the big corporations. However he’s not a Javanese, and that’s a major handicap to winning the presidency. He’s also not trusted by the non-Muslims.

SBY, 60, has been unable to stop the imposition of some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in the provinces. These include forcing female bureaucrats and students to wear headscarves, banning alcohol, enforcing prayers and setting up community patrols to sniff out sexual naughtiness, though the Constitution appears to prohibit such local initiatives.

By contrast, and after decades of oppression, the media in Indonesia is now the freest in South-East Asia, robustly pushing the old barriers on a wide range of social and political issues.

Despite doomsayers claiming Indonesia would become another Pakistan as fundamentalism flourished, that hasn’t happened. The battle against terrorism, with significant help from the Australian Federal Police, has notched up many wins against the bombers.

SBY’s push against corruption has had limited success; pulling out the wallet remains the standard way to bypass stalling bureaucrats at all levels.

The judiciary is still a mess, continuing to use colonial Dutch law from early last century. The over-staffed public service remains a dinosaur sturdily resisting attempts to force change. Decentralisation has compounded the confusion. Outsiders trying to do business need to tread warily.

The economy has slumped, though not as much as expected and less than other Asian nations. Poverty and poor quality education remain major concerns, although there have been patchwork successes in improving the lives of those on Kampong Bleak.

The consensus, both inside and outside the Republic seems to be that SBY has made a reasonable fist of handling one of the world’s toughest tasks - and given the line-up against him is clearly the best bloke around.

There are two standout dangers: if he wants to divorce Golkar and get a workable majority in the Parliament, SBY may be forced to cohabit with the PKS and other minor Islamic parties. This could let the extremist tail wag the reformist dog.

The other concern is that the opposition parties frustrated at their inability to find candidates with popular appeal may combine to spoil SBY’s legislative program out of spite. Success here seems less likely; though the emotion is real they’ll find it hard to work together because so many are single-issue or policy-free parties that have yet to learn the arts of compromise.