New order may buy 50% of voters off: Analyst

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.