Voters want change in government

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Though the vote count from Monday's legislative election is still in the early stages, the gains of two new parties indicate the desire for serious political reform, according to observers.

Officials had counted a little over two million of an expected 148 million votes by Tuesday evening, but these early figures, plus an exit poll conducted on Monday by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Education and Information (LP3ES), indicate strong gains by the Democratic Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

By Tuesday evening, official figures had both parties with about 12 percent each of the votes tallied.

The results indicate that people are distancing themselves from the older, established political parties, the institute said.

However, in Monday's exit poll in LP3ES, Golkar was the projected winner with 22.7 percent of the vote, followed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 18.8 percent.

The institute's projections were made from direct observations of 1,416 of almost 60,000 polling stations across the country, and by talking to 289,052 voters from 32 provinces.

LP3ES researcher Rustam Ibrahim noted that many people said they voted for the Democratic Party so that it could pass the 3 percent threshold that would allow the party's cofounder, former security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to run in the country's first direct presidential election.

Among those voting for the Democratic Party likely were disillusioned PDI-P supporters, he said.

The institute predicted that 8 percent of the total votes obtained by the PDI-P in the 1999 elections would move to the Democratic Party, while 4 percent of the PDI-P's votes would go to Golkar.

The LP3ES said the votes gained by the PKS likely came from those who now preferred it to other Islamic-oriented parties.

Meanwhile, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs' Indonesia director, Paul Roland, said the votes gained by new parties would influence the composition of the legislature as well as the voting in the July 5 presidential election.