PAN likely to dominate June general election

This is the first of two articles on potential results of the coming general election prepared by Lance Castles, an Australian scholar and visiting lecturer of political sciences at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The study of the available opinion polls asking voters their intentions shows that the National Mandate Party (PAN) is most likely to dominate the seats at the House of Representatives (DPR).

Calculated on the basis of the polls, the breakdown in the directly elected part of the DPR will be approximately as follows: PAN is likely to gain 58 percent, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) 19 percent, the National Awakening Party (PKB) 11 percent, the United Development Party (PPP) 7 percent and the Golkar Party 5 percent.

No other party is likely to exceed the 2 percent threshold, though the Crescent Star Party (PBB) might just make it. (The approximately 5 percent of the poll preferences that seem to be going to minor parties has been distributed proportionately among those that get in).

These are not the straight findings of the Sugeng Saryadi organization, since, as is pointed out ad nauseam, they have imperfections. The first imperfection is that respondents are only in cities (Jakarta, Medan in North Sumatra, Padang in West Sumatra, Yogyakarta and Surabaya in East Java). The second is that a high proportion (at least two-thirds) refuse to mention the party of their choice ("don't know"). Most commentators decide that this renders the poll results invalid and return to total subjectivity.

Others increase their degree of freedom to fantasize by totally fallacious arguments such as: "Indonesian polls differ completely from one another." Actually they are unanimous on the main points.

"Indonesians have no experience with polling." Nonsense, soap companies have been using them for decades.

"Samples here are too small." They are just as big as in any other country.

"They are invalid since few people here own a telephone." There seems to be a widespread belief that only millionaires with doctorates are allowed to apply for a phone to be installed.

Actually, according to Tempo magazine, a separate organization has carried out a random survey in 26 provinces and it published some trivial results on the answers to an interesting question: What parties are people supporting? About 41 percent of respondents are non-Muslim -- 11 percent Buddhist and 30 percent Christian -- compared with 13 percent in real life. So the parties perceived as Muslims have to be adjusted up by 10 percent of the whole, and the others, mainly Megawati Soekarnoputri's PDI Perjuangan, down by the same amount. As a result, PAN will rise from 25 percent to 31 percent, while PDI drops from 35 percent to 28 percent.

A further minor adjustment for a time trend should also be made. In the August polls, Megawati did about 3 percent better and Amien Rais of PAN 3 percent worse. Assuming that trend will continue in the coming few weeks, PAN may increase to 33 percent and PDI Perjuangan to 26 percent.

So, the breakdown is as follows: PAN will win 33 percent, PDI Pejuangan 26 percent, PKB 15 percent, PPP 9 percent, Golkar 9 percent, PBB 3 percent and others 4 percent. Since none of the parties mentioned is likely to prefer Megawati over Amien except PDI and PKB -- with total votes of 41 percent -- he will probably be in the stronger position in the DPR even on this basis.

Actually there is no poll evidence that PKB is ahead of PPP, but since all poll respondents are urban, it was plausible that the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) vote-bank in the countryside would be more likely to go to PKB. The total for the two parties, 24 percent, is considerably above the 18 percent of 1955 and 1971, whether because of improvement in religious commitment or because non-NU people are still expressing a preference for PPP. Golkar may get a boost from 6 percent to 9 percent, with an assumption that villagers are 75 percent more prone to vote Golkar than city people.

In recent months I have done my own polling, or rather interviewing, with dozens of people in supermarkets, bars, buses, taxis, etc. As with the polls, about a third give a clear answer. The rest claim not to have decided, and often at first not to know enough to be able to decide. Note, however, that these people are not alienated from the political process, since in the polls less than 3 percent declare their intention not to vote.

Usually I can get the "don't knows" to explain their dilemma, if necessary by suggesting that they might vote Golkar. This is invariably indignantly denied, so enabling me to inquire "In that case, who might you vote for?" Gradually the dilemma becomes apparent. The person in question was very pro-Megawati, and his late father a Sukarnoist of the deepest dye, but now he had begun to wonder. What was so great about Megawati? Isn't Amien, in spite of everything, more suitable to solve the present crisis?

Mutatis mutandis, the person in question, may be an NU supporter by upbringing, but is now noticing that Amien always seems to have a good answer, while NU chairman Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid seems to be hopeless now, and who else have we got?

It does not mean that all these doubtful people will go over to PAN. I make the very conservative assumption that half will end up going back to their first loves. They will be like the white ethnics in America in the 1970s, who reputedly could not bring themselves to pull the Republican lever, even though they were hopping mad with the current Democratic leadership.

However, I insist that those who do make a shift, whether it is 30 percent, 50 percent or 75 percent, will not shift randomly or symmetrically, so that the party breakdown we have advanced to by stages on the basis of the polls can be retained anyway.

On the contrary, the shift-over people will all shift to PAN. No person hesitating in the way I have described is likely to go over from PAN to non-PAN, but it is quite plausible that half the hesitaters are going to go over from non-PAN to PAN.

Window: So, the breakdown is as follows: PAN will win 33 percent, PDI Pejuangan 26 percent, PKB 15 percent, PPP 9 percent, Golkar 9 percent, PBB 3 percent and others 4 percent.