Winning in Indonesia

Winning in Indonesia

No one won last week's Indonesian elections. As elections go,
it was one of the largest and most complicated exercises in the
history of modern democracy. Almost half a million candidates put
their names to national, provincial and local ballot papers
across three time zones, taking in some of most remote polling
booths on earth. With slow counting continuing, it appears that
at least seven parties will have to squeeze their rivalries into
the new parliament. The building of a stable coalition government
-- without a single, dominant force -- now poses a very
considerable challenge for the fractious political elite.

The legacies of Indonesia's rival post-independence strongmen
are locked in an uninspiring draw. Support for the PDI-P of
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of the
independence leader and former president Sukarno, had slumped to
just over 20 percent, with half the vote counted. Golkar, the
party machine of the man who deposed Sukarno, the former
authoritarian president Soeharto, was just 0.37 percent behind.

Support for both parties is tinged with nostalgia for the
strong leadership of the past. In governing, Sukarno and Soeharto
drew heavily on the Indonesian tradition of "mufakat", often
misleadingly translated as consensus. In practice, it usually
means decisions are taken by acquiescence to the opinion of the
most powerful figure at the table. This tradition has left too
many politicans ill-prepared for the compromises, open debate and
delicate negotiations coalition politics demands.

PDI-P may yet beat Golkar by a small margin. However, Ms
Megawati's outgoing government was so hobbled by divisions that
policy-making and governance faltered. Many PDI-P officials were
also accused of taking up where Soeharto's Golkar team left off
-- with their hands in the national till. The stain of corruption
over the two largest political parties, however, means smaller
parties may have enhanced leverage. The newcomers most favourably
placed are the Democrats and Justice and Welfare parties. The
unexpected success of "clean government" campaigns, and the rapid
rise of the popular Democrats leader, Ret. Gen Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, will put pressure on all parties to match their
promises of reform.

The political "cow trading", as Indonesians call it, will be a
fraught, drawn-out process. Much now rides on Indonesia's first
direct presidential elections in July, which will hand one leader
a popular mandate to manage the fractured parliament. Last
Monday's polls were only Indonesia's third free elections in
almost 50 years. Their successful completion is, itself, an win
for Indonesia and another firm step away the authoritarian past.

-- The Sydney Morning Herald