Indonesia held a general election to vote a legitative member (9/04) today. This election could determine if President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will have enough support to win a second five-year term needed to push through aggressive economic and institutional reforms.

The outcome of Thursday’s election for a new 560-member legislature is being closely watched because it will determine who will qualify to run for president in July. By the Indonesia’s constitution, only the party or coalition that wins a fifth of the seats – or 25 percent of the popular vote – can nominate a candidate for that race.

Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party is expected to come out on top, but with more than 170 million people registered to vote and 38 parties to choose from, nothing is certain. Other front-runners are the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle headed by former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and the largest party, Golkar.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, emerged from 32 years of dictatorship under Gen. Suharto in 1998, leading to reforms that freed the media, struck down repressive laws and, in 200, allowed citizens to vote for president for the first time. It is often held up as a beacon of how Islam and democracy can go hand-in-hand.

If Yudhoyono’s party wins 26 percent of the popular vote, as some opinion polls predict, he will not have to cobble together an alliance with others seen to be less willing to tackle corruption, overhaul the judiciary and streamline bureaucracy.

“At this moment it looks like he’s going to make it,” said Dede Oetomo, a political analyst from Airlangga University in the city of Surabaya.

Last time around, the Democrats won just 7 percent of the vote, forcing Yudhoono, eventually, to partner up with Golkar and a handful of Islamic parties that tried to push through laws governing everything from the way women dressed to the types of magazines that could be hawked on street corners.

Analysts say these elections could see the popularity of religious parties, which did well in 2004, waning. Most of the secular country’s 210 million Muslims practice a moderate form of the faith.

“As long as these parties try to push through Islamic-based laws, they are going to keep losing support,” said Syafiie Maarif, an Islamic scholar. “They need to come up with a broader, policy-based platform, like fighting poverty.”

Campaigns across the board were largely personality driven and policies have been broad and ill-defined, focusing on issues like the effect the global slowdown has had on the economy or the need to root out pervasive corruption.

posted on on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 2:41 am
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