Voting pattern may change

Voting pattern may change

This is the second of two articles on the pattern of the
Indonesian voting prepared by Lance Castles, a visiting lecturer
in political science at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. He
has written a number of books on Indonesia, including Indonesia,
Political Thinking 1945-1965.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Indonesian polls released in recent months
clearly show a pattern of voting preferences, bearing a strong
resemblance to that of the elections in 1955.

The most useful indication was a poll in November, which asked
telephone respondents in five cities -- Jakarta, Medan in North
Sumatra, Padang in West Sumatra, Yogyakarta and Surabaya in East
Java -- on who they regarded as the best person to be president.

Differences were revealing and, in some cases, pronounced.
Megawati Soekarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), for instance, polled two-and-a-half
times better than Amien Rais of the National Mandate Party (PAN)
in Yogyakarta, but he beat her fivefold in Padang. The main
conclusions that can be drawn are as follows.

* Amien and Megawati were streets ahead of the other
candidates, with a likely combined total of about 70 percent.

Purely on poll evidence, more respondents said they would vote
for Megawati than Amien, but the voting on the election day will
probably reveal the reverse, giving PAN a further 6 percent of
the overall vote and cutting PDI Perjuangan down by 8 percent.
This is because 41 percent of poll respondents were non-Muslims,
compared with only 13 percent in the population at large, and
adjustments should be made.

* There are two significant but much smaller parties, the
National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party
(PPP), which can be expected to get about 12 percent of the vote
each.

PKB might do better if rural voters go for it rather than for
PPP -- the polls, being purely urban, cannot help us here. But
it is worth remembering that the urban vote is one-third of the
whole, so that the final percentage will not deviate too much
from 12 percent each.

* The earliest poll in August showed Amien beating his rival
Yusril Ihza Mahendra of the Crescent Star Party (PBB) seven-to-
one; by February this had risen to 20-to-one. This trend seems to
show that, within the aliran (underlying religious-cultural
commitment) boundaries, at least, people tended to desert an
apparent loser.

Since PBB is widely believed to be more urban than rural, it
may well fail to meet the 2 percent needed to be represented at
all.

For this kind of reason parties like the Justice Party and the
Indonesian Uni-Democracy Party (PUDI) barely showed in the polls.
They will certainly not occupy any seats.

* Golkar is only getting about 7 percent and declining. Even
the first poll in August showed it to have no prospects. Many
people believe that it will perform well because it is supposedly
strong outside the cities, where simple voters will choose it out
of habit, bribery or fear of the village chiefs.

This is completely unconvincing. Rural voters are not dumb and
isolated. They are under the same electronic barrage as the rest
of the electorate. The parties and their posko (command posts)
penetrate into the most remote villages, often being
demonstratively located opposite police stations to "show the
flag".

* An important change has taken place since 1955. This can be
shown by a simple calculation. At that time, the non-Muslim
parties, mainly the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI) and the
Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), got 56 percent of the vote and
18 percent went to Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), for a total of 74
percent.

Since PKB is clearly allied to Megawati, and PDI Perjuangan
inherits all except about 7 percent (expected to go to the Golkar
party) of the said 56 percent, Megawati would be a certain winner
if the old voting pattern still prevailed.

But the fact is that there has been a clear swing to the
parties which are "Islamic in spirit". PDI Perjuangan plus PKB
appear to command only about two-fifths of the electorate,
compared with three-quarters for the equivalent group in 1955.

Three factors contribute to this trend.

One is demographics. Family planning caught on earlier and
more thoroughly among the Javanese, so that they have declined as
a proportion of the population. And they were the stronghold of
the non-Islamic votes.

Secondly, there has been an Islamic revival, which means that
more people translate being Muslim into voting for a party which
is perceived as Islamic, even though ironically the main
beneficiary of this trend is PAN, a party which has eschewed all
religious symbolism and tirelessly proclaims its openness to all
groups even at the leadership level.

Finally, the total elimination of the PKI and its affiliated
organizations has probably left the survivors vulnerable to
recruitment by buoyant local representatives of the santri
(devoted Muslims) aliran.

One woman said that in her village, all the residents switched
from PKI to NU. So, some old PKI strongholds in Java may turn out
to now go 40 percent or more for the Muslim parties.

However, there is another possible reason for the trend that
has noting to do with aliran. It may be that independently
thinking younger votes simply like Amien better than Megawati
(Ye gads, the death of all punditry and old-handery!) What can be
said for this interpretation?

The strongest evidence is a large-scale poll reported at the
universities in Bandarlampung. It showed Amien and Megawati to be
far ahead of the other candidates, but Amien somewhat ahead of
Megawati. Yet surely Bandarlampung (80 percent of its population
is Javanese) is aliran-wise, straight PDI Perjuangan territory?

Recent discussions with nonacademic people, including hotel
and supermarket staff, showed that after an initial refusal to
state a voting choice, the "respondent" turns out to have been
previously a supporter of Megawati, partly because she was
perceived as unfairly treated, but is now considering switching
to Amien, who seems better suited to the needs of the time. The
trouble with telephone polling is that it cannot pick up this
kind of phenomenon.

Perhaps this "decline of aliran" phenomenon was foreshadowed
in research by J. Kristiadi of the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) some years ago in rural and urban
locations in Central Java.

He found that most voters said they followed the advice of
panutan (local leaders), such as an ulama, official or employer.

However, the younger and better educated voters said they made
up their own minds, which could be interpreted as a move toward
non-aliran voting.

Furthermore, even some older voters said they voted for PDI on
the advice of an official. This surely means that they were
making up their own minds on which advisor they would follow.

How do these odds and ends of information relate to the
extraordinary reluctance of respondents in polls to state their
choice?

Anything from 65 percent to 85 percent of "don't knows" are
recorded. If these people are conscious adherents of an aliran-
based party, or bucolic clients of Golkar, why on earth don't
they say so?

It is not that they are alienated from the system, since less
than 3 percent say they will not vote. The obvious explanation,
surely, is that they have been habitually voting for a particular
party, but are now hesitating. PAN seems the likely beneficiary
of this trend. There are going to be some very surprised people
when the voting results are announced in June.