Fragmented politics predicted
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Analysts painted a gloomy picture of the country's post-general election political landscape on Wednesday, saying that it would be more fragmented than before, with party squabbling hampering the functioning of an effective government.
Political observer Indria Samego of the Habibie Center said that with more political parties likely getting legislative seats than in the 1999 election, the House of Representatives (DPR) would turn into a massive horse-trading arena.
Indria said, for example, that Golkar's likely failure to get its chairman Akbar Tandjung into the presidential seat would prompt the party to demand bigger trades-off from the winner of the presidential election.
"Because the Golkar party has the most seats, it will eventually ask for more positions in the cabinet. Otherwise, Golkar politicians in the House will vote against any policies proposed by the future president. The same will also be true for the other parties," he told a seminar on the post-election political landscape organized by the Habibie Center.
By 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Golkar, the political party of former autocrat Soeharto, led the pack in the legislative election with 20.85 percent of the 86,422,240 votes counted, compared to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)'s 19.83 percent.
Trailing behind the two parties were the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 12.23 percent, the United Development Party (PPP) with 8.28 percent, the Democratic Party with 7.52 percent, and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) with 7.12 percent.
A total of 147.6 million voters had been registered to vote in the April 5 elections.
Indria said Akbar would likely lose his bid in the direct presidential election due to his ambiguous stance on corruption issues.
Although he was exonerated by the Supreme Court in a graft case last month, the public remains unconvinced that he was not involved in the Rp 40 billion (US$4.8 million) financial scandal involving the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).
Indria said that a number of Golkar politicians had pledged that they would reject the programs of the future government should they not be given "attractive" seats in the Cabinet.
"Such is the mentality of our politicians, they will object to anything if they don't get what they want," he said.
He said that even if Golkar and the PDI-P formed a coalition, there would still be instability as reform-minded political parties, non-governmental organizations and the educated middle class would oppose it. "It would be tantamount to the return of the New Order," he said.
According to William Liddle, an Indonesian expert from Ohio State University in the U.S., if the favorite in the presidential race, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was elected president, he would be unlikely to find support in the House.
"Supposing SBY (as Susilo is familiarly known) got through the first round of the presidential election and won the most votes in the second round, he could not do much as his Democratic Party will garner only around 7 percent of the votes in the legislative elections," Liddle said.
Analyst Ikrar Nusabakti of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said that such fragmentation was the logical consequence of a multiparty system.
"However, its adverse effects could be reduced if the political parties with substantial numbers of legislative seats were willing to act as an opposition. This would create a conducive environment for checks and balances between the government and the House," he told The Jakarta Post.