New order may buy 50% of voters off: Analyst
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Powerful remnants of the discredited New Order regime have consolidated themselves and will use their apparently unlimited financial resources to buy votes during this year's elections, a political analyst warned on Saturday.
"They could buy more than 50 percent of some 140 million eligible voters. The New Order parties can afford to pay up to Rp 1 million per vote, or a total of Rp 70 trillion (about $8.5 billion), which seems feasible for them," Arbi Sanit of the University of Indonesia cautioned during a discussion which marked the launch of NU Online, the official website of the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama.
Arbi urged the reformist parties not to engage in such vote- buying, reasoning that their combined wealth was too small to compete with that of the parties connected to New Order figures -- some of whom are said to have amassed huge fortunes during the 32-year regime of former president Soeharto.
Indonesia will hold its 9th general elections beginning on April 5, followed by its first direct presidential election ever on July 5, with a possible run-off on Sept. 20.
Arbi called on the voters to support the reform parties, even if attempts were made to buy votes.
"Reform parties should sell voters on the benefits of the reform movement and preach patience as the country needs more time to recover due to serious damage in many areas inflicted by the corrupt New Order system," he said.
Political analysts and surveys earlier revealed that many people were hoping for a strong leader such as New Order founder Soeharto for "stability and security" purposes.
Many former government officials that worked with Soeharto and his administration have been nominated by several political parties to run for seats in the House of Representatives as well as the Regional Representatives Council (DPD).
The apparent revival of key Soeharto regime figures has been a source of some public concern, particularly the nomination of his eldest daughter Siti Hardijanti Rukmana as presidential candidate for the Concern for the Nation Functional Party (PKPB), a party founded and chaired by former Army chief Gen. (ret) R. Hartono.
Hartono himself stated that the party was founded at the behest of the ailing former president and that Indonesians were yearning for the past under the long-time ruler.
Another speaker at the seminar on Saturday was political and military analyst Juanda, who said the return of parties and candidates associated with the New Order reflected the failure of the current leaders to tackle corruption, nepotism and collusion, which, in large part, were the very raison d'etre of the reform movement that forced Soeharto to resign in May 1998.
"In terms of security also, the current, supposedly reformist, leaders have failed to improve security and public order," said Juanda, a retired Navy colonel who once was an intelligence supervisor for former president Abdurrahman Wahid.
Juanda added that many of the current politicians who claimed to uphold the reform movement, could themselves even be categorized as corrupt.
Dozens of noted intellectuals, activists and religious leaders earlier launched a campaign against "rotten" politicians. They are in the process of "blacklisting" all crooked politicians who are or have been involved in corruption, human rights violations, environmental destruction, sexual or domestic violence and drug abuse.