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