Why Megawati lost

As the vote count rolls on it has become clear that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate Jusuf Kalla are going to win in a landslide and lead the nation for the next five years. The results are showing a stunning defeat for the incumbent President, Megawati Soekarnoputri. By Tuesday evening, with approximately two-thirds of the estimated 120 million votes counted, the Susilo/Jusuf Kalla pair are in total command and lead by more than 20 percentage points.

These numbers are likely to hold, especially because in the heavily populated provinces of Central Java, East Java and North Sumatra, which have traditionally been bases of Megawati loyalists, Susilo is leading.

Now the question becomes, why did Megawati lose, despite all her efforts during the last 10 weeks to get reelected, to the point of maximizing the facilities offered by the office of the presidency? This interesting question will likely keep a great number of political analysts and research institutions busy in the months and years to come. However, at this early stage we would like to make a few preliminary remarks that perhaps could help reveal the drastic socio-political changes that have been taking place in Indonesian society.

Apparently, the majority of the Indonesian electorate were on Monday expressing their ethical rejection of a culture of permissiveness that the Megawati leadership (with the assistance of her husband, Taufik Kiemas) has been spreading, not only within the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP), but throughout the important agencies of the Indonesian government. Corruption by political leaders and government officials, perfected during the later years of President Soeharto's tenure and practiced almost blatantly during President Megawati's administration, has indeed been a constant problem in Indonesia. Because of the cynical attitude of those leaders of PDIP, the majority party professing to adhere to the basic principles of democracy, social justice and transparency, the Indonesian public was forced to conclude that enough was enough.

Another significant factor in Megawati's defeat was probably the limited intellectual weight of her leadership and the poor quality of her government's policy decisions, though of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. The organized dialog of the presidential candidates with selected panel members last week, televised nationwide, showed in an embarrassing manner, that Megawati simply could not fathom the questions posed to her. On the other hand, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono displayed an impressive intellectual aptitude by presenting coherent statements on a wide range of issues.

The preliminary results of the Sept. 20 presidential election clearly reflected the strong yearning for change that exists among Indonesians, as well as the prevailing opinion that this nation deserves leadership, which adheres to moral principles, imbued with a more respectable intellectual quality. Although the full and detailed results of the Sept. 20 runoff presidential election have not been made public, it is not too early to point out that drastic and significant changes have taken place, affecting the social psychology of Indonesian society, with far- reaching political consequences.

In the years to come, this country's new leadership should constantly remember that, politically speaking, the majority of the Indonesian populace has reached a level of independence that is not easily swayed by massive public relations campaigns, nor by clever money politics. At the same time, however, this new development in the form of a newly found socio-political independence constitutes a factor that the new leadership under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla will have to reckon with.