Jakarta dispatch

Polling daze

Voters in Indonesia have surprised pundits by not letting the presidential election turn into a one-horse race, writes John Aglionby
And the winner of Indonesia's first direct presidential election is.... the voters.

Just as they did in the April legislative elections, the approximately 127 million people who turned out to vote (an impressive 80% of the 155m eligible voters), defied the opinion polls, the hours and myriad columns of pre-poll media punditry and, most significantly, the elites within the political parties and mass religious organisations who believed they were able to deliver votes by the million for their preferred candidate.

The consequence is that while two common campaign predictions did prove correct - that retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won the most votes but not enough to win an outright majority - the result was much closer than expected.

This means the September 20 run-off between the top two finishers will be anything other than the one-horse romp many forecasters had suggested.

With about 90% of the votes from the July 5 poll counted and the final results unlikely to change by more than a fraction, Mr Bambang, rather than sweeping to more than 40% as expected, is only on 33.4%. Meanwhile, in the scramble for second spot, which many analysts had predicted as being too close to call, the incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri is coming a strong second on 26.2%.

This is much better than her party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, had done in the parliamentary election (18%), which was another surprise as her appeal had been considered synonymous with that of the party.

Another retired general, Wiranto, is on 22% and the other two candidates much further behind.

So what happened? Large numbers of Indonesians indicated they wanted a balance of power between the executive and legislature. Mr Bambang, whose nascent Democratic Party won only 11% of the seats in parliament, attracted support from all the major parties.

He was viewed as being strong, calm, consistent and sincere. But clearly not strong, calm, consistent and sincere enough. On several key issues he was indecisive.

For example, on Islamic law he vacillated between the two stools of saying that as a good Muslim he supported it but as an Indonesian nationalist he did not. This pleased neither the more conservative Muslims nor the religious minorities.

Also hindering him was that as his popularity grew his image as the victim - he had resigned as chief security minister in March after being sidelined by Ms Megawati - waned, but he did not fill the front-runner boots as snugly as hoped.

Ms Megawati, on the other hand, is an enigma. On the surface this motherly, taciturn daughter of Indonesia's charismatic founding father Sukarno waged a lousy campaign. She was rude to media interviewers, interacted with voters but rarely bothered to engage with them and in the one official TV candidates' dialogue (no debating was allowed) performed abysmally.

The only explanation head-scratching analysts can come up with is that she only has to appear on TV screens to satisfy not only her significant rump but many other waverers. There are also indications she pulled in a good proportion of the female vote for no reason other than that she is a woman

So what is likely to happen now? Mr Bambang is still the favourite but is seen as much more vulnerable than previously.

Having said that the election results show there was a massive demand for change, voters were just split on what sort of change they preferred. His challenge is to harness that demand to his bandwagon.

Valid doubts thus remain as to how many more votes Ms Megawati can attract - in focus groups before the first round the vast majority of people said Mr Bambang would be their first choice in the run-off if their preferred candidate was not contesting.

Working in her favour though is that she has two months to use the power of incumbency to campaign unofficially while her competitor will be much more limited, as the official campaign is only three days' long.

Local media are focusing on who the candidates will seek to build coalitions with, with particular attention being paid to Mr Wiranto's supporters and the leadership of the Golkar party, which nominated him and won the most seats in parliament.

While this is not an insignificant element it is clear it will not be the determining factor. What is key is how the candidates connect with the electorate.

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