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.