Accept Golkar victory: Analysts
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
As the ballot counting nears completion, with former ruling Golkar Party catapulting back into the lead, political observers are setting their hopes for improvement in the 2009 elections.
"It's the people's vote, and the people's voice is never wrong, although there is no single explanation for it," said Daniel Sparinga of Surabaya-based Airlangga University.
Daniel saw Golkar's impending victory as punishment for President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and her government's poor performance during her three years in power.
He said many PDI-P supporters had shifted to other parties with similar nationalist ideologies, mostly the veteran Golkar party and the upstart Democratic Party, which was cofounded by Megawati's former top security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"So Golkar's victory is due to the weakness of the PDI-P leadership. People don't see a light at the end of the tunnel under PDI-P," Daniel said.
The ballot counting, which will conclude in the next couple of weeks, has so far offered no single majority, with Golkar securing 17 million votes, closely followed by PDI-P with 16 million.
Daniel did not see the possibility of a coalition between Golkar and PDI-P because Golkar would take the lead in the July 5 presidential election if it won.
Megawati's husband Taufik Kiemas, a PDI-P leader in his own right, has repeatedly said the party would form a coalition with Golkar and seek support from the country's largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama.
The PDI-P has decided to renominate Megawati as its presidential candidate.
"I suspect that (Golkar chairman) Akbar Tandjung will win the party convention and become the party's presidential candidate," he said.
The Golkar convention is scheduled for April 20.
Apart from a likely Golkar victory, the legislative election also yielded the familiar faces of legislative members with poor performance records.
Daniel said the poor-quality House members hailed not only from old-school parties, but also from new parties which showed lackadaisical performances in the loophole-ridden election laws and regulations.
"In the 2009 election, there will be better legislators, while improvements will have been made in laws and regulations," he said.
Separately, executive director of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) Smita Notosusanto shared Daniel's view, saying the current situation that resurrected former powers and parties was not uncommon in a transition period.
"This happened in East European countries where former ruling communist parties won elections," Smita said.
She saw the election as an indication of progress, as more than 60 percent of voters had correctly punched not only the party logo, but also their chosen candidates' photographs.
However, she admitted that the election would produce poor House representatives, who had been placed at the top of their parties' candidacy lists.
She agreed that, as no single party would emerge the majority winner, the election would result in power-sharing or horse- trading among parties, adding that horse-trading was common in politics as long as it was conducted openly.
"So we push them to be transparent. We have also drawn up a proposal on how to deliberate a bill transparently," she said.