Old parties may dominate elections
Old parties may dominate elections
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Habibie Center, a study center founded by former president
B.J. Habibie, predicted on Wednesday the general elections would
not produce leaders who cared about issues affecting the common
people and would keep the existing six major political parties in
power.
The center's political analyst Indria Samego said people would
remain loyal to the major parties and ignore the 18 new parties
due to a lack of voter education.
"Now, we have already run out of time to educate people to
vote for political parties based on reason. The General Elections
Commission has failed in its duty to educate voters," Indria told
a media conference on Indonesia's outlook for 2004.
The 1999 general elections saw the Indonesian Democratic Party
of Struggle (PDI-P), the Golkar Party, the United Development
Party (PPP), the National Awakening Party (PKB), the National
Mandate Party (PAN) and the Crescent Star Party (PBB) win among
them almost all the 500 House of Representatives seats. The six
parties met the 2 percent electoral threshold, which has enabled
them to qualify for this year's polls.
Indonesia will hold the legislative election on April 5 and
the landmark direct presidential election on July 5 for the first
phase and Sept. 20 for the run-off.
Indria predicted the former ruling Golkar Party would defeat
President Megawati Soekarnoputri's PDI-P in the legislative
election, in view of the internal conflict plaguing the latter.
"But for the presidential election, Megawati and Amien Rais
will emerge as the strongest contenders," he said. Amien is the
leader of PAN and the People's Consultative Assembly speaker.
Indria said if Amien managed to intensify his campaign across
the country, he had a fair chance of winning the presidency.
"If Amien fails, Megawati will be elected for the full five-
year term thanks to her popularity," said Indria, who is also a
researcher with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
Amien succeeded in establishing a loose coalition among
Islamic political parties and politicians that catapulted PKB
founder Abdurrahman Wahid to the presidency at the expense of
Megawati in the 1999 election.
In general, the Habibie Center said Megawati's administration
had not made many improvements in the political sphere, regional
autonomy or law enforcement in 2003.
The center's legal expert Muladi said the Supreme Court had
failed to decide on high profile cases, including the corruption
case involving House of Representative Speaker and Golkar Party
leader Akbar Tandjung.
"The case should not be kept hanging in the balance. The Court
apparently has no sense of crisis," Muladi, the justice minister
under President B.J. Habibie, said.
The Jakarta High Court upheld last year Akbar's three-year
prison sentence for his role in a Rp 40 billion (US$4,7 million)
graft case involving the State Logistics Agency (Bulog). Akbar
remains free pending the Supreme Court's verdict.
Muladi also supported the movement against crooked
politicians, but warned the initiators of the campaign against
mentioning any names as it could be libelous.
"I agree to spelling out the definition of a crooked
politician, but never mention any names. The politicians targeted
would have strong reason to sue the movement," he claimed.
Dozens of noted intellectuals and activists launched the
movement, defining crooked politicians, which included
involvement in corruption, human rights violations, environmental
destruction, domestic violence and drug abuse.