TAPOL

Contents:

Court Dashes Small Parties’ Hopes [14 February]
The Constitutional Court has rejected a demand for a judicial review filed by 11 minor political parties against the requirement that a party must gain enough votes to have at least 2.5 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, DPR, to be eligible for representation. [full story…]

Also: Court Rules Out Independent Candidates for '09 [18 February].[full story…]

KPU Told to Drop Affirmative Action Bid [14 February]
The General Elections Commission has been rebuked by the Speaker of the House of Representatives for involving itself in the controversy over affirmative action for women. The Commission has criticised a Constitutional Court ruling that candidates in general elections receiving the most votes are entitled to legislative seats, regardless of gender. [full story…]

SBY vs The TNI "ABS" - A Rebellion in Disguise? [14 February]
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has sent a clear warning to some (former) officers who allegedly conspired to campaign against him. "ABS" (Asal Bukan `S') is the code: "Choose anyone but `S'". Many retired generals supported the President saying the military should remain politically neutral. But why, in doing so, did they, unlike the President, vehemently deny the existence of the ABS group of (ex) officers? [full story…]

Violence Rears Its Ugly Head In Aceh [14 February]
Four years after the Boxing Day tsunami that wiped out large parts of coastal Aceh, storm clouds are brewing for the society that spent decades at war with Jakarta. With the country heading to national elections, simmering tensions in Aceh have already erupted into clashes and what appear to have been politically targeted assassinations. There are fears the violence could build even further as groups -- including elements of the Indonesian military -- vie for power in the increasingly wealthy province. [full story…]

Also: Fears of Violence After Aceh's Latest Political Murder [14 February] [full story…]

Bloody Pre-Election Violence In Aceh: George Aditjondro [16 February] [full story…]

Elections Must Be Peaceful in Aceh: Irwandi Yusuf, Governor of Aceh [21 February] [full story…]

Crimes, Bombs And A Shaky Bureaucracy [21 February] [full story…]

Martti Ahtisaari warns polls could ruin Aceh peace [26 February] [full story…]

Cracks Appearing In Peace Pact [26 February] [full story…]

Violence Stalks Indonesia's Aceh As Elections Loom [26 February] [full story…]

Divided Golkar Party Set for a Showdown [16 February]
Golkar, the ruling party of the Suharto regime, is showing signs of becoming a victim of its own success. Many of the party's bigwigs find themselves divided over whether to field their own presidential candidate or to have the current vice president, Jusuf Kalla, remain as incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's running mate in this year's presidential election. Meanwhile, another section of the party, its go-for-broke element, have deluded themselves into believing they have a viable presidential candidate in Kalla to challenge Yudhoyono. [full story…]

Also: Golkar, SBY Have Big Decisions to Make: Jakarta Globe editorial [18 February] [full story…]

Whither the SBY-JK Partnership? [16 February] [full story…]

Most Golkar regional branches want their own president [20 February] [full story…]

Indonesian Clerics Flex Political Muscles [16 February]
Parliamentary and presidential elections in Indonesia this year may hinge on how the public reacts to a directive from the country's top Islamic council that all Muslims must vote or risk going to hell. The controversial edict from the Indonesian Council of Ulama, which consists of elected clerics and scholars, does not state which parties or candidates voters should choose. But it may encourage Muslims to vote for Islamist candidates and push the country away from secularism toward a more socially rigid government. [full story…]

Gerindra is becoming more confident [16 February]
Gerindra, the Greater Indonesia Movement, says it increasingly confident of its prospects in the coming elections. The chief of Gerindra's Advisory Board, Prabowo Subianto claims that it now has ten million card carrying members, which it has achieved in the one year since its foundation. [full story…]

KPUD claims fund shortage amidst new ballot system [17 February]
The Jakarta General Election Commission (KPUD) claims it is short of the funds necessary to prepare for the 2009 general elections in April. “The 2009 elections have turned out to be a lot more complicated than the previous ones.” A challenge ahead of this year’s elections, he said, was introducing people to the new voting system, where voters mark the ballot paper instead of
perforating it. [full story…]

It’s a Cult of Personality Among Candidates Who Have No Personality: Max Lane [11-23 February]
Election fever mounts as candidates discuss strategic alliances and running mates, but academic and Indonesia expert Max Lane says this may be an election characterized by disappointment—for candidates and constituents alike. [full story…]

Indonesia Polls Show Hard-Line Islamists Losing Ground [19 February]
The popularity of hard-line Islamic parties is on the wane in Indonesia, making the Southeast Asian nation a rare example in the Muslim world of a place where secular democracy is taking hold. That comes as a surprise to some. Five years ago, when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono became Indonesia's first democratically elected leader, the nation was viewed by Western governments and analysts as similar to Pakistan—a place where extremist Islamists were gaining a stronghold. [full story…]

Indonesian Politics: Personalities Overshadow Policies [20 February]
As Indonesia grapples with what could be its worst economic crisis in a decade, its political parties have provided few solutions other than nationalist ones in the run-up to the April elections. [full story…]

Also: factbox on party policies. [full story…]

Papua Governor warns of possible conflicts during elections [20 February]
The governor of the province of Papua is worried that the majority vote principle is likely to cause conflicts between the parties or even within parties. This is because it intensifies the competition between candidates in their bid to win a seat. He has urged the local election supervisory agencies to act in a spirit of independence and prevent any unwanted intervention. [full story…]

Prabowo Unrepentant on Rights Abuse [21 February]
A former son-in-law of Indonesian dictator Suharto running for president said Friday his "conscience is clear" over human rights abuses he committed as a senior army general. [full story…]

Also: Former Kopassus chief adopts bizarre poll tactic [23 February] [full story…]

Outsider Prompts ‘General Unease’ [25 February] [full story…]

Election Fever: Jakarta Post editorial [23 February]
Will Vice President Jusuf Kalla (JK) remain the running mate of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) or will JK challenge SBY in the July presidential election? Will the Prosperous
Justice Party (PKS) get more votes in the April 9 legislative election? These are the hottest issues among the 170 million registered voters in Indonesia. They pay little attention to party platforms as they know it would only be false hope to expect the candidates to fulfil their promises. Meanwhile, millions of voters are still unsure of the voting system and the General Elections Commission (KPU) is still preoccupied by administrative matters including the as yet unfinished delivery of voting materials. [full story…]

Parties sign pact boosting commitment to fight graft [26 February]
Leaders from all the political parties contesting the upcoming legislative election signed an agreement Wednesday to show their commitment to the fight against corruption. Politicians from 38 parties competing in the national election and six other parties running for seats in the Aceh elections agreed that corruption was a serious crime for which heavier punishment was necessary. [full story…]

Hey Voter! Look! I’m The One For You ... [26 February]
The legislative elections are just around the corner, and the signs have been obvious, literally, for the past few months. Posters, billboards, flags, stickers and pamphlets bearing images of the candidates, or caleg , and their words of wisdom catch your eye wherever you turn. These visual campaigns line the streets, obstruct one’s view of the sky and are stuck on walls, trees and poles — where their supporters hope they will be noticed. Some manage to get the attention they seek, but not always for the reasons they hope. [full story…]

Democracy Comes Of Age In Local Elections: Book review [27 February]
THIS book sets out to examine an aspect of Indonesia's transition rarely covered by the international media - the recently completed local elections in all 33 of the country's provinces. Known as pilkada, the elections were an important development in the post-Suharto era because they symbolised the final devolution of authority from the once all-powerful central government. [full story…]

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Court Dashes Small Parties' Hopes

The Jakarta Globe
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Camelia Pasandaran

The Constitutional Court on Friday ruled to reject a demand for a judicial review filed by 11 minor political parties against the minimum election vote share required to gain seats in the House of Representatives, or DPR, the court's chief said.

The threshold system requires that a party gain at least 2.5 percent of the 550 seats in the DPR to ensure representation — even if their individual candidates win in their respective areas.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the 2008 Law on Elections favored established parties, discriminated against minor parties and constituted a breach of the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees equal protection and standing under the law.

Chief Justice Mafhud MD, presenting the court's decision, said the lawsuit had no strong legal basis and that the court "rejects all parts of the plaintiff's lawsuit."

Mahfud said that the legislative threshold was not unconstitutional. "The court disagrees that the threshold
violates human rights," he said. "All political parties have the same chance to contest the election in a democratic way, but not all parties are lucky enough in the competition."

"The legislative threshold is allowed by the Constitution as a way to simplify the politics of the multiparty system," Justice Abdul Mukthie Fadjar said.

"The law on the party system is meant to put in place limitations as long as they remain in line with the
Constitution."

Two of the eight justices, however, wrote dissenting opinions.

"The Constitutional Court failed to deeply consider the spirit of the Constitution," Maruar Siahaan, one of the dissenting judges, said after the verdict.

"Lawmakers have been inconsistently applying a election system that is changed from time to time as per their own interests."

The plaintiffs were the Democratic Renewal Party, or PDP; the Patriot Party; the Regional Unity Party, or PPD; the National People's Concern Party, or PPRN; the Prosperous Indonesia Party, or PIS; the Freedom Bull National Party, or PNBK; the New Indonesia Alliance Party, or PPIB; the Functional Party of Struggle; the People's Conscience Party, or Hanura; the Indonesian Democratic Party of Devotion, or PKDI; and the
Freedom Party.

PNBK chairman Eros Djarot said he was disappointed with the verdict and blamed the court.

"The court has lost its rationality and nationalism," Eros said.

"Just listen to what the dissenting opinions of the two judges said. It is not rational to simplify the multiparty system using a legislative threshold."

Roy B.B. Janis, chairman of PDP, said outside the court that the decision may lead to conflict.

"Legislative candidates who gain lots of votes and fail to become legislators may file a lawsuit with the court," Roy said.

Abdul Hafiz Anshary, head of the General Elections Commission, or KPU, agreed that the threshold could lead to disputes.

"Candidates who have won but get dropped because the party did not pass the threshold may file lawsuits," he said on Friday.

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Court Rules Out Independent Candidates for '09

The Jakarta Globe
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Camelia Pasandaran

The Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled that independent candidates would not be permitted to run in July's presidential election.

Court President Mahfud MD said that contrary to the plaintiffs' claims, the election law was consistent with the Constitution, which he said clearly stated that presidential candidates must be nominated by political parties or coalitions of parties.

"We reject the demand for a judicial review in its entirety," Mahfud said.

Fadjroel Rachman, a political activist who has nominated himself as an independent presidential candidate, in December filed a demand that the court review the presidential election law. He was backed by two other plaintiffs, Mariana and Bob Febrian, as representatives of Indonesian voters.

They requested that the court annul some articles in the law in order to open the way for independent presidential candidates to contest the election.

Many of the prominent legal and political experts testifying at the court voiced support for allowing independent candidates, and survey results have indicated that most Indonesians want independent candidates in the presidential race.

The Indonesian Survey Institute said that more than 75 percent of Indonesians believed that all citizens had the right to nominate themselves in presidential elections, said institute head Saiful Mujani.

Nevertheless, a majority of the Constitutional Court judges rejected the review demand, with three judges issuing dissenting opinions — Abdul Mukhtie Fadjar, Maruarar Siahaan and Akil Mochtar. As chairman of the court, Mahfud MD, did not give an opinion, a court official said.

Abdul said that preventing independent presidential candidacies was unconstitutional.

"It is discrimination and denies citizens the right for equal standing under the law, as written in the Constitution," Abdul said.

"The other articles in the Constitution on candidate requirements do not mention anything about candidates having to be nominated by political parties."

Maruarar said that the court's interpretation neglected the doctrine of "constitutional unity."

The court, he said, "should interpret articles in the Constitution in relation to other articles."

He also cited the survey results, arguing that the court should have considered popular opinion regarding independent candidates.

"The Constitution should be translated broadly, as it is meant to be applied in unpredictable conditions," Akil said, adding that procedures should not discriminate against any citizen's right to become a presidential candidate.

However, the three dissenting judges allowed that with the polls just months away, the timing may not be right to allow independent presidential candidates to contest the upcoming election.

They said that the issue could be relevant to the 2014 election, however.

Fadjroel said outside the court that he would continue his own presidential campaign, and was also prepared to push the issue of independent candidates again in the future.

"If I cannot make it this year, I will nominate myself again in the 2014 election," Fadjroel said.

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KPU Told to Drop Affirmative Action Bid

The Jakarta Globe
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Febriamy Hutapea

House of Representatives Speaker Agung Laksono on Friday rebuked the General Elections Commission for involving itself in external matters.

"The KPU should not manage, discuss or bring up an idea that is not in its authority to do so, like the issue of affirmative action," Agung said, referring to the commission by its Indonesian acronym.

The Constitutional Court ruled last December that candidates in general elections receiving the most votes were entitled to legislative seats, regardless of gender. This, in effect, modified the electoral system from the previous method, in which political parties receiving the most votes then decided which of their candidates would take the actual seats.

The previous "half-open" system had required that at least one of a party's three winning candidates in an electoral region be female.

However, the KPU has criticized the modification, and has asked the government to issue an emergency regulation, or Perpu, amending the law.

"We will wait until the House issues a regulation in lieu of law," Abdul Hafiz Anshary, chairman of the KPU, said on Friday. "We have finished drafting a regulation, but have not decided on when to issue it. Some KPU members believe it is better to wait until the government issues a Perpu."

The proposal, backed by State Minister for Women's Empowerment Meutia Farida Hatta and several female legislators, has sparked anger among many male legislators.

Under the quota proposal, if men from the same party came first, second and third in an electoral district, the third-ranked male would have to give up his seat to the first-ranked female candidate from the same party.

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"ABS" - A Rebellion in Disguise?

The Jakarta Post
February 14, 2009
Op-Ed Aboeprijadi Santoso

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has sent a clear warning to some (former) officers who allegedly conspired to campaign against him. "ABS" (Asal Bukan `S') is the code: "Choose anyone but `S'". Many retired generals supported the President saying the military should remain politically neutral.

But why, in doing so, did they, unlike the President, vehemently deny the existence of the ABS group of (ex) officers?

Former TNI chief Gen. (ret) Endriartono Sutarto said the military was politically neutral and will remain so. Indeed, both Endriartono, when he was the TNI chief, and the President have repeatedly reminded the corps not to dabble in politics. Last week, Army Chief Gen. Agustadi Sasongko explicitly stated the same principle. Other retired generals sang the same chorus. If such a group of rebel (ex) officers existed, the President
should investigate and order the TNI chief to arrest them. But that was precisely what the President didn't do.

In other words, they supported the President as a matter of principle, but doubted, to say the least, the attitude he adopted. Issuing a warning without taking firm steps seems to them to confirm the President's image: a doubter. The principle of a "politically neutral military" is imperative, it should inevitably be supported, but this doesn't necessarily entail firm support for the President.

So what went wrong, and where?

Historically, the Indonesian Military is an institution with a dynamic past. Some experts have claimed there were few political upheavals or rebellions that did not involve some Army elements on the part of the rebels. The Dutch-inspired Republic of the South Moluccas (RMS) separatist rebellion in the late 1950s is one example. By contrast, the PRRI-Permesta Rebellion of the late 1950s was a regional rebellion as much as a manifestation of deep-seated conflicts among the officers.

Our democracy, and the reform of the TNI in particular, is much too young - too superficial - compared to this "tradition". So responses to possible dissatisfaction and revolt should be more than just the repeated rhetoric of moral imperative and normative calls.

A lesson learned may be: face the facts, deal with them, and open a public dialogue. Let us, for example, suppose that the rebellious ABS group does exist.

The most likely figures to be associated with ABS would be Gen. (ret.) Wiranto who leads the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto with his Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).

Given Wiranto's reported lack of funding, but better party organization, his Hanura Party is interesting to Prabowo, who seems to be less popular within the military, but whose Gerindra Party seems equipped with a wealthy campaign machine -- just as the Gerindra Party is attractive to Wiranto.

Wiranto may be a careful strategist with less articulate rhetoric, just as Prabowo has the image of being a bold soldier whose style and populist rhetoric may be inspiring.

Permadi, a former Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle politician who now joins the Gerindra Party, has argued Prabowo is a "little Sukarno", but he forgets populism is not the same as patriotism. The two may be intimately linked, but populism may strongly appeal to people's general and simple instincts, primordial or otherwise, whereas patriotism does not necessarily.

Indeed, Hitler's fascism is a good example of manipulation of patriotic values so as to attractively combine it, at time of crises, with populist rhetoric and militarism.

In any case, an alliance of Wiranto's well-organized party machine and Prabowo's alleged charisma, populism and patriotism would likely be a formidable challenge to other presidential hopefuls - first and foremost: SBY. Hence, their code: "ABS", "Anyone But Susilo."

Whether SBY's reelection, a (hypothetical?) Wiranto-Prabowo alliance, or other presidential hopefuls for that matter, would be good for Indonesia, is another matter altogether. But to incite a rebellion in disguise within or without the military, to warn them without firm steps, and to deal with them secretly, in an elitist way, without a public debate, is not to serve our democracy.

Generals - old soldiers - it is said, never die, they just fade way. In a young democracy, though, they should "die" militarily, abandon their military habit and tradition, and "fade into" a healthy civilian political game.

The writer is a journalist

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Violence Rears Its Ugly Head In Aceh

The Australian
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta Correspondent

FOUR years after the Boxing Day tsunami that wiped out large parts of coastal Aceh, almost everyone involved in the Indonesian province's reconstruction is talking up the special agency President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono created for the task.

But as that body prepares to shut its doors, storm clouds are brewing for the society that spent decades at war with Jakarta.

The nationally mandated Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) for Aceh and the nearby island of Nias, headed by apparently incorruptible former mining minister Kuntoro Mangkusobroto, winds up in just a few weeks after managing about $US7.2 billion ($11 billion) in pledged funds.

The figures are impressive: 134,000 houses built, more than a thousand schools, thousands of kilometres of roads, dozens of harbours, 12 airports.

But with the country heading to national elections, simmering tensions in Aceh have already erupted into clashes and what appear to have been politically targeted assassinations.

There are fears the violence could build even further as groups -- including elements of the Indonesian military -- vie for power in the increasingly wealthy province. Yesterday, at what has become an annual meeting in Jakarta to show international donors how well the reconstruction is going, Dr Yudhoyono outlined details for a new agency that will continue BRR's work, albeit with greater direction from provincial authorities.

Tellingly, the name of the newbody is the Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Continuation Agency. Its birth enables the President, who came to office promising a corruption-busting, governance-promoting term, to point to an out-and-out success by closing the original office and declaring its work done, whilst quietly allowing its mechanism tocontinue.

Dr Kuntoro reported yesterday that about $US6.7 billion of the total pledged amount -- or 93 per cent -- had been committed to reconstruction projects.

However, there is still a long way to go. ``The things that remain to be done is a lot of roadwork, houses -- well, the houses have been built, but a lot of them still don't have water or sanitation, or electricity,'' said Simon Field, head of the UN Development Program in Aceh, after Dr Yudhoyono opened proceedings in the grand arena of the Jakarta Convention Centre.

``The President is going to Aceh in a couple of weeks to open a new airport that still doesn't have full computer systems or even proper luggage conveyor belts and is operating with its old control tower, and a museum that I think will still be empty,'' he said.

``You can see it as a kind of election issue -- the President gets to say that his efforts at governance reform have succeeded. In fact, nothing has (been) finished, there's still a lot of money, but it certainly gives a closure date for Kuntoro.''

Closure for Dr Kuntoro, heavily tipped for a senior minister's position in a second Yudhoyono government, is one thing. Continued electoral legitimacy for Aceh's wily Governor, Irwandi Jusuf, could be quite another.

Dr Irwandi, a US-trained vet and leader in the former rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM), has had to constantly duck and weave as he pulls his province into shape after winning office as an independent in Aceh's first real elections two years ago.

Two former GAM guerillas were shot dead in the past week in what many are reading as direct military intimidation of the group, which has more recently gained political legitimacy through the vehicle of its Aceh Party. A spokesman for the Aceh Transitional Committee (KPA) -- the body created after the 2005 ceasefire to accommodate former GAM fighters -- sounded an ominous warning.

``The two cases indicate that the KPA and the Aceh Party are being targeted by persons who do not want to see peace in Aceh,'' Ibrahim Syamsuddin said.

``Do not provoke us into ratcheting up tensions prior to the elections. Terrorists and killers must be captured before things get worse.''

Fortunately, the belligerent language was mostly posturing and anger. The UNDP's Mr Field insisted yesterday that ``rent-seekers'' and jostling between competing interests had been behind most of the incidents, rather than genuine political agendas. ``It's low-level stuff; there definitely won't be the level of conflict again in Aceh that there was,'' he predicted.

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Fears of Violence After Aceh's Latest Political Murder

The Jakarta Globe
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Sally Piri, Muninggar Sri Saraswati & Nurdin Hasan

The fatal shooting of a local political leader has prompted a former pro-independence guerrilla fighter to demand that the government try to prevent violence and discord from shattering the tentative peace in Aceh Province.

"We are very worried, as the security situation in Aceh is becoming more unpredictable by the day," Ibrahim Syamsuddin, KPA spokesman and one-time guerrilla, said on Friday.

Taufik, alias Benu, 35, the head of the local chapter of the Aceh Transitional Committee, or KPA, in Meulaboh, West Aceh district, was found dead from several gunshot wounds on Thursday in his home. The KPA was formed to accommodate former members of the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, after it was disbanded following the 2005 peace agreement between the movement and the government that ended nearly 30 years of armed conflict.

People in Aceh are conscious of elements in the restive province who do not want peace, Ibrahim said in a written statement. "We have already predicted that they will continue to engage in provocation and terror so that Aceh will return to conflict.

Ibrahim added that many in Aceh hope that international organizations will help restore security.

Taufik, who was also active in the Aceh Party, was the third KPA member to be shot dead this month. Dedi Novendi, the Batee Iliek KPA secretary, was shot dead late on Feb. 3 at his home, while KPA member M. Nur was gunned down in Aceh Besar the following day.

Taufik was found dead by his wife early on Thursday morning. Six spent bullet casings were found in the room and police have said they were from a handgun.

Police declined to comment other than to say an investigation into the shooting was underway. They have also complained of a lack of witnesses and hard evidence in the three political murders.

Meanwhile, the Aceh Police announced that they have been conducting special security operations involving an anti-terror squad and the military, to maintain security ahead the election.

The Antara news agency also reported that in Nagan Raya district, 250 police officers and soldiers have been deployed to "hunt armed criminal groups."

Many firearms, left over from the conflict, are believed to be in the hands of the civilian population.

In Jakarta, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called on all parties to build trust.

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Bloody Pre-Election Violence In Aceh

The Jakarta Post
Monday, February 16, 2009
George Junus Aditjondro

Political violence in the northern tip of Sumatra has taken its toll on the neighboring provinces of North Sumatra and Aceh. Unprecedented in Indonesia, the speaker of the North Sumatra Legislative Council, Abdul Aziz Angkat, died in the wake of a public demonstration on Feb. 3.

Political protests unleashed by the Medan tragedy have unfortunately overshadowed the political killings that took place in Aceh on the same day.

At midnight, Abu Karim, a candidate from the Aceh Party for the provincial legislature, was shot to death in his car while driving home to Pulo Kiton, Bireuen.

Within 12 hours, two other members from the Aceh Transition Committee (KPA), the organization established to accommodate former Free Aceh combatants, M. Nur and Zakaria, were shot in their car in Aceh Besar by two motorcycle riders. Nur died on the spot, while Zakaria was hospitalized.

These were the latest victims of the pre-election intimidation against the Aceh Party (PA), the political party established by former Free Aceh combatants.

For the last two years, numerous PA offices and residences of PA leaders in several districts in Aceh have been reportedly attacked, set on fire, had grenades thrown at them and, in one case, a bomb was found in the fishpond at the residence of the Pidie parliament speaker.

One of the districts where PA candidates have suffered the most intense intimidation is Bener Meriah in the Gayo highlands, one of the strongholds of the pro-Jakarta militia organization, Fatherland Defenders (PETA). Last January in Bener Meriah and its neighboring district, Central Aceh, 20 of the PA candidate’s
billboards were vandalized, scored with the Indonesian Communist Party initials (PKI) and sickle-and-hammer symbols.

These incidents took place at dawn in many villages along the Takengon to Bireuen road. Several perpetrators were caught red-handed in Simpang Lokop in Wih Pesam subdistrict, Bener Meriah on Jan. 28.

Intimidation against PA candidates and against villagers to discourage them from voting for the PA has not only involved PETA members, but allegedly also local civilians and security officials. However, the Aceh Party is not the only local political party that has suffered from pre-election violence. The Aceh People’s Party (PRA), a local political party set up by former student activists, the Aceh Sovereignty Party PDA) and
the Prosperous and Safe Aceh Party (PAAS) have also experienced the vandalizing of their billboards and banners, as well as intimidation against their party leaders.

With the increasing pre-election violence, Aceh Governor Irwandy Yusuf has appealed for international election observers, who will monitor the forthcoming elections, to come to the province as soon as possible.

The governor has written to President Yudhoyono and to the European Union and repeated his appeal in a statement to the local newspaper, Serambi Indonesia.

Considering the inadequate national concern for the ongoing pre-election violence in Aceh, the international community should urgently respond to this very sound appeal.

The writer has been observing the economic and political developments in Aceh closely since early 2007.

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Elections Must Be Peaceful in Aceh

The Jakarta Post
February 21, 2009
Commentary by Irwandi Yusuf

BANDA ACEH

The 2009 legislative election will be a crucial test of the peace that has been established in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. If we succeed in holding a peaceful election, the roots of peace and democracy will be strengthened both in the province and throughout Indonesia. To that end, it is imperative that all parties work together to ensure the April election is free of violence.

While part of the national election cycle, the upcoming legislative election in Aceh is unique because it will be the first time that Acehnese will have the opportunity to choose candidates from both local and national political parties.

The right to form local political parties in Aceh stems from point 1.2 in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed by the Government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki, Finland on Aug. 15, 2005.

Six local political parties will contest in the election, competing against candidates from 37 national political parties.

However, some have expressed concern over the existence of local political parties. It has been said that if local political parties win a majority of seats in the provincial legislature, they will take the opportunity to declare a referendum that will renew calls for independence in Aceh.

However, rather than constructing negative scenarios, we should see local political parties as an opportunity for the Acehnese to strengthen the democratic process and affirm their commitment to the peace process.

Local political parties are no different than national political parties. They are struggling to develop policies on education, health care and economic development, and trying to win public support for those policies — just like any other political party in Indonesia. They pose no threat to the unity of Indonesia or to the peace process in Aceh.

It is my intention to reassure all parties that Aceh is committed to peace within the framework of the Helsinki MOU, which provides autonomous power for Aceh within a united Indonesia.

The April election is an opportunity for all people, whether from local or national political parties, to put forward their ideas on development and advancement to the people of Aceh. To that end, the election is an opportunity to strengthen the implementation of the peace process in Aceh and to deepen the roots of democracy throughout Indonesia.

In the spirit of the MOU, let us work together to promote a peaceful election. To those who seek to destabilize the security situation in Aceh through provocation, intimidation and terror, you must know that your actions will not deter, but only strengthen our resolve for peace.

We have confidence in and support the efforts of the police to solve outstanding security incidents and prevent further incidents in the run-up to the election.

We also support the efforts of the Election Monitoring Committee (Panwaslu) to investigate and report on potential election violations.

Finally, we call upon political party leaders and their constituents to restrain themselves from any inflammatory statements or actions and remember that political party differences must be respected as part of the democratic process.

We welcome assistance from all parties to ensure a peaceful election and encourage the central government to facilitate the presence of national and international election monitors.

Additionally, assistance on voter education, capacity building of political parties and socialization of the election system are needed to empower voters in Aceh to make informed choices Aceh is committed to peace. We extend our hand to all to join in the democratic struggle to build a better future and to
safeguard a peaceful election cycle in Aceh. The election in Aceh is an important step toward fulfilling the commitments made by both parties in the MOU and to integrate Aceh into Indonesia’s burgeoning democracy.

The writer is the governor of Aceh.

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Crimes, Bombs And A Shaky Bureaucracy

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
John McBeth, Senior Writer

THESE are nervous times for Aceh. With aid agencies winding down operations and crime on the rise, a scattering of bomb and gun attacks has raised concerns of more serious violence ahead as Indonesia gears up for April's legislative elections.

While few people believe the historic 2005 Aceh peace agreement is in danger of collapsing, the military appears intent on preventing the Aceh Party (AP), made up of former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists, from winning a lion's share of the vote.

The fault lies on both sides. Regional commander Major-General Sunarko, who previously headed the Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus), is a hard-nosed nationalist who believes the whole peace process was a mistake. The military and intelligence community has long maintained that if AP does make a strong
showing at the polls, the resulting GAM-dominated administration will challenge Jakarta.

It is not clear how widespread it is, but some AP cadre are stoking that paranoia by telling villagers that a vote for the party is essentially a vote for eventual independence.

Local analysts say the recent spate of assassinations and grenade blasts cannot easily be laid at the door of the province's 14,000 soldiers and 9,100 policemen, who often feel vulnerable themselves.

Many of GAM's senior leaders have been elected as district chiefs, leaving behind disgruntled followers and a movement that has become dangerously fragmented. Adding to the mix are clan leaders anxious to retain their influence in particular areas.

At the same time, Acehnese are on edge over an upsurge in goldsmith hold-ups - possibly to finance election campaigns - and an increase in cases of extortion and abductions.

Conservative generals, senior bureaucrats and nationalist leaders have been critical of the 2006 law, prescribed under the peace deal, which allows for the creation of local parties. The April 9 elections are expected to be dominated by two of them - AP and the Sira Party, a grouping of mostly young former
activists acting under the guidance of deputy governor Muhammad Nazar.

Mr Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of the Aceh and Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR), which ends its four-year mandate on April 16, does not share the military's concerns about a new push for independence. But he also fears GAM's former followers will resort to strong-arm tactics to win a lion's share of the vote in rural villages, home to 90 per cent of the province's 4.2 million population.

'How big it wins will depend on how free it is to intimidate the people in the villages,' he told The Straits Times. 'If they are not able to intimidate, then I don't think (AP) will get more than 30 per cent of the vote.'

For Mr Mangkusubroto, another concern is the lack of a legal framework on which to build the sort of economic development needed to guarantee a more politically stable environment. While he is justifiably proud of what the agency has done in leading post-tsunami recovery efforts, he regrets being unable to push
through implementing regulations on investment and mineral and oil and gas exploration.

In the end, treading carefully to avoid upsetting local authorities, the BRR succeeded in getting only eight out of 60 regulations through the provincial parliament, none of them related to economic issues.

Economic sustainability is important, particularly in finding jobs for huge numbers of unemployed Acehnese - including 14,000 disgruntled former GAM combatants.

A former energy minister, Mr Mangkusubroto said that while ExxonMobil's natural gas reserves will soon run out, he believes there are still promising gas pockets along the eastern coast between Langsa and Llokseumawe.

Given the enhanced powers Aceh has over its natural resources under the Special Autonomy Law, it is more urgent than ever for regulations to be put in place that will attract new investors. The same applies to mineral exploration.

Handing BRR's remaining work over to a one-year transitional body headed by Aceh Governor Irwandi Jusuf does create uncertainties, but it may be a good thing at this stage of the recovery process.

'To me, it takes away their excuses,' said one former staff member. 'Now it all comes down to the Acehnese themselves and whether they have the political will to do what needs to be done.'

Mr Mangkusubroto is holding out forlorn hopes that the 400 local officials who worked for BRR at its peak will use their additional skills, knowledge and new work ethic to change the way the bureaucracy approaches its work.

'I think a lot of them have learnt that it is not just a matter of following bureaucratic procedures, it's a matter of motivation,' he said. 'They hadn't seen people working late into the evening before.'

Still, with the BRR closing its doors on April 16 and the number of foreign aid agencies dwindling by the day, the prospect of an administrative vacuum appears to be creating as much unease as the approaching elections.

thane.cawdor@gmail.com

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Nobel laureate warns polls could ruin Aceh peace

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Feb 25 (AP) - Nobel laureate Martti Ahtisaari warned that a hard-won peace in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh could unravel if upcoming elections are plagued by violence or cheating.

He told a conference in the provincial capital on Tuesday that international monitors should help oversee the process.

The region has been relatively calm since the government signed a peace deal with separatists in 2005, ending 29 years of fighting that left 15,000 people dead, but there has been scattered political violence in recent weeks.

Some candidates have been intimidated, party offices attacked with grenades, and a politician killed ahead of parliamentary polls scheduled for early April, when Indonesia's stages general elections.

Regional peace is "still in its infancy" and needs to be protected, said Ahtisaari, who won the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize for helping end the conflict in Aceh and other troublespots.

"There is of course the danger that any false moves, by any party, to hijack or manipulate the election process would derail efforts to establish sustainable peace," he said, adding that bringing in foreign monitors would be "instrumental in preventing disputes."

Aceh, an oil- and gas-rich province of 4 million people on Sumatra island's northern tip, had experienced almost constant warfare for more than 140 years.

Efforts to end the fighting gained momentum after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck on Dec. 26, 2004, leaving at least 156,000 of the province's people dead or missing and a half million others homeless.

As part of the 2005 peace deal, the rebels gave up their long-held demand for independence and disarmed. In exchange, the government allowed them to participate in local politics.

They held their first ever direct election for governor, mayors and district chiefs in 2006 and will pick members of national and regional legislatures on April 9.

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Cracks Appearing In Peace PactAgence France Presse

February 26, 2009

GUBERNATORIAL elections in 2006 brought former rebel leader Irwandi Yusuf to power, but April's vote will be the first time in decades that the people of Aceh will get to choose their local lawmakers.

The peace deal brought the former GAM rebels into power, allowed the establishment of provincial political parties and guaranteed the local government 70 per cent of revenues from Aceh's vast resources wealth.

But cracks are appearing in the pact, negotiated in the shocking aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami which killed 170,000 people in Aceh.

Many Acehnese feel Jakarta has failed to fully implement the terms of the deal and resource revenues are not flowing through to the people.

Thousands of demobilised rebels are without work or have been marshalled into various political camps, often with nothing much to do.

Significant slices of foreign aid have been appropriated to fund political activities, but that money is now running out as the aid agencies wind down their post-tsunami reconstruction projects, analysts said.

Ibrahim Syamsuddin, a spokesman for the Aceh Transitional Committee (KPA) charged with representing demobilised rebels, said former fighters were committed to peace but other, unknown parties wanted to provoke a new conflict.

'Don't try to provoke us to retaliate because we realise that our retaliation is what they have been waiting for,' he said, refusing to identify who might be behind the provocations.

He said many of the attacks had targeted the KPA and members of the Aceh Party, the ex-rebels' political vehicle.

Governor Yusuf and Ahtisaari agree that foreign monitors are needed to maintain peace during the polls, and Yudhoyono has promised to invite some.

'Voting is the right of every citizen... there can be no intimidation, coercion or use of force in elections,' the
president said. -- AFP

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Violence Stalks Indonesia's Aceh As Elections Loom

Nurdin Hasan

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Feb 26 (AFP) -- With elections six weeks away, the hard-won peace in Indonesia's Aceh province is being replaced by fear as rival interests vie for power using threats,
intimidation and murder.

Concerns are growing that the violence could erupt into a larger conflict over power and control of resources in mineral-rich Aceh, which holds elections on April 9.

The polls are the first direct elections for local parliament since the historic peace deal was signed between Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatist guerrillas and Jakarta in 2005, ending 30 years of bitter fighting.

But instead of marching toward a peaceful and democratic future, the conservative Islamic province on the northern tip of Sumatra island has been shaken over the past year by political and criminal violence.

No one is sure who is behind the incidents, which have included kidnappings, murders, shootings and grenade attacks on party offices and politicians' homes. Three former rebels were killed and one was injured in separate shootings earlier this month.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned against a slide back to conflict on Monday as he made only his second visit to Aceh since the peace agreement was signed in Helsinki.

"We have to drop all personal interest for the interest of the Acehnese people and the Indonesian people," Yudhoyono said in a speech in Banda Aceh.

"Don't ever look back. Don't break up the process that has halted a very long and bloody conflict," he added, without blaming any party or group for the hostilities.

Yudhoyono made the comments hours after meeting Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, one of the architects of the Aceh peace deal, who is visiting Indonesia.

In a speech to a regional conference here late Tuesday, Ahtisaari warned that Aceh's peace was still in its infancy and called on local parties to show "extreme restraint" ahead of the polls.

"With the peace process still in its infancy stage, there is of course the danger that any false moves, by any party, to hijack or manipulate the election process would derail efforts to establish sustainable peace in the province," he said.

Few if any of the people behind the violence have been arrested and the police admit they can do little without witnesses willing to come forward.

Hendra Fadli, the Aceh coordinator for the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, said Indonesian troops could not provide security because there was an "impression" among many in Aceh that they were part of the problem.

Gubernatorial elections in 2006 brought former rebel leader
Irwandi Yusuf to power, but April's vote will be the first time
in decades that the people of Aceh will get to choose their
local lawmakers.

The peace deal brought the former GAM rebels into power, allowed the establishment of provincial political parties and guaranteed the local government 70 percent of revenues from Aceh's vast resources wealth.

But cracks are appearing in the pact, negotiated in the shocking aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami which killed 170,000 people in Aceh.

Many Acehnese feel Jakarta has failed to fully implement the terms of the deal and resource revenues are not flowing through to the people.

Thousands of demobilised rebels are without work or have been marshalled into various political camps, often with nothing much to do.

"Don't try to provoke us to retaliate because we realise that our retaliation is what they have been waiting for," he said, refusing to identify who might be behind the provocations.

He said many of the attacks had targeted the KPA and members of the Aceh Party, the ex-rebels' political vehicle.

Governor Yusuf and Ahtisaari agree that foreign monitors are needed to maintain peace during the polls, and Yudhoyono has promised to invite some.

"Voting is the right of every citizen... there can be no intimidation, coercion or use of force in elections," the
president said.

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The Thinker: Divided Golkar Party Set for a Showdown

The Jakarta Globe
Monday, February 16, 2009
Taufik Darusman

Some 10 years ago, the former Army chief of staff, R. Hartono, went to see Suharto to discuss his idea of running for Golkar Party's general chairmanship.

The retired four-star general thought Suharto, who by then had resigned as president, would approve of his protege's idea.

Hartono was counting on the former strongman's "blessing," as was the norm then.

Suharto was down but not quite yet out. As the head of Golkar Party's board of patrons, the most powerful body within the party, Suharto still wielded residual but considerable power.

To his surprise, however, Suharto told Hartono to forget the idea.

"Don't bother," Suharto is supposed to have told Hartono, a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

"The party is in shambles."

Ever the patron, Suharto, who had been at the nation's helm for the past three decades, told Hartono to form a new political party.

This he did, and together with Suharto gave it the name PKPB, or Concern for the Nation Functional Party. One can only surmise where the funds came from to pull off the feat.

Suharto, as it turned out, was wrong about the Golkar Party. It did not implode and continued to be a formidable political force.

Today, however, the party is showing signs of becoming a victim of its own success. And Suharto, 10 years on, may yet be proven right after all, as many of the party's bigwigs find themselves divided over whether to field their own presidential candidate or to have the current vice president, Jusuf Kalla, remain as
incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's running mate in this year's presidential election.

Meanwhile, another section of the party, its go-for-broke element, have deluded themselves into believing they have a viable presidential candidate in Kalla to challenge Yudhoyono.

It's not clear what method they used to calculate this since most polls put Kalla way behind several other presidential hopefuls. But no matter how flawed their belief may be, they deserve credit for insisting, as a matter of principle, on their own presidential candidate.

In the meantime, Agung Laksono, the House speaker and Kalla's second-in-command in Golkar, is in proactive mode.

The party's leadership meeting in October decided to come up with a presidential candidate only after the results of legislative elections in April are known. But this did not stop Agung from asking Golkar chapters in the regions to submit the names of seven candidates they see as having the right stuff to run for president.

It is unlikely that Kalla appreciates Agung's initiative. For it is clear that Kalla has little or no chance of becoming president, and aware of this, he is basing his political future on being asked by Yudhoyono to be his running mate for a second term.

He has also rejected the idea of holding a convention to choose Golkar's presidential nominee, thus preventing an awkward situation whereby a candidate emerges to oppose him.

But here is Kalla's deputy, Agung, soliciting names from the regions in a move that implicitly brushes aside Kalla's grand plan: to have Golkar remain at the center of power, albeit at the cost of the presidency.

So the stage is set for a showdown. Kalla, believing that Golkar's best hope lies in him being vice president for a second term, against Golkar stalwarts insisting the party have its own presidential nominee.

While Kalla may be keen on a second term as vice president, it is not his for the asking. Yudhoyono's power base, the Democratic Party, is reassessing Kalla's market value.

The last thing it wants to see is its boss running in tandem with a man shunned by his own party.

To what extent Golkar leaders are able to act for the greater good of the party by putting their weight behind Kalla, and dispensing with any ideas of an alternative candidate, will have a big say in the outcome of the election.

Taufik Darusman is a veteran journalist based in Jakarta.

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Editorial: Golkar, SBY Both Have Big Decisions to Make

The Jakarta Globe
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The relationship between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla was forged out of necessity in the heat of the 2004 presidential election. At the time, Kalla's Golkar Party backed ret. Gen. Wiranto, a party outsider, at its convention, but he lost in the first round of voting. By the time of the runoff, Kalla sought and gained the number two spot and Golkar accepted a coalition with Yudhoyono's much smaller Democratic Party.

The coalition between Golkar and the Democratic Party, however, has always been fragile, with the strain of supporting the government often testing Golkar's internal unity.

With another presidential election approaching, it has become obvious that the political marriage between Yudhoyono and Kalla is more tenuous than ever.

Factions within Golkar have been pushing the party to nominate a presidential candidate before the April legislative elections. Kalla, who remains Golkar chairman, has been resisting such a move, perhaps because he wants to judge the relative strength of the party after the polls before deciding whether to finally
break with Yudhoyono and make a bid for the top spot.

It now appears that the factions may have won the day. Kalla was quoted this week as saying that the party can select candidates prior to the legislative polls but that the results will be announced afterward. It remains to be seen if this will satisfy the party.

Golkar itself will have to resolve the political tensions in its ranks. Numerous party stalwarts have declared their intention to try and grab the nomination for president and they have chafed at Kalla's desire to delay the process. Coping with conflicting ambitions inside a political party is not a bad thing. This is a normal part of the democratic process and should be encouraged. Parties who successfully manage such tensions in an open and transparent manner stand a greater chance of becoming successful in the eyes of voters. This is Golkar's challenge if it is to remain a dominant political force.

There is also increasing speculation that Yudhoyono may want a different running mate this time around. His silence on the question of who will occupy the number two spot when voters choose a president in July has only fueled talk of a political divorce.

This raises the question of what criteria should be applied to choosing a vice president and whose decision will ultimately prevail. While the current uncertainty has made a parlor game out of handicapping the race, Yudhoyono is well within his rights. The real power in this case lies with the president to choose a running mate, and he needs to be both strong and decisive. We hope to see the president projecting his authority
strongly when he names his choice.

We would also be happy to see a broader national debate on the qualifications needed in a vice president. Given that the person in the position succeeds to the presidency in the event that anything should happen to the sitting president, this is not a matter to be taken lightly.

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Insight: Whither the SBY-JK Partnership?

The Jakarta Post
Monday, February 16, 2009
Rizal Sukma

Politics in Indonesia is never averse to speculation. Such was the case under the Soeharto regime and it continues to be so now in the postauthoritarian era. Only the issues that people speculate about are different. Under Soeharto, we only speculated on who would be picked by the President as Vice
President and members of the Cabinet. Now, we speculate about almost every aspect of political life.

The latest and hottest issue these days is the future of the partnership between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and Vice President Jusuf Kalla (JK). Both of them are evidently content with their pairing. But no one now can say for sure whether SBY and JK will put themselves forward in the same configuration in the July 2009 presidential election.

When, during the national meeting of his Democratic Party (PD) last week, SBY declined to announce his preferred running mate in the upcoming election, many inferred he might not want to continue the partnership with JK.

The speculation grew further after a remark by PD deputy chair Ahmad Mubarok, regardless what he actually said, angered many Golkar Party leaders. Mubarok reportedly said Golkar could win a mere 2.5 percent of the vote in the upcoming legislative elections, less than the 10 percent the party had won in the
2004 legislative elections. Golkar leaders found the statement offensive and suggested it could threaten any future coalition between the two parties. SBY’s quick response to repair the damage by correcting Mubarok’s remarks seems to have little effect.

It is a stark irony that Golkar, the country’s largest political party, could not agree on which political decision it should make regarding the most important issue in the upcoming election. Golkar still has not decided whether to propose its own candidate for president or to continue supporting the current duo. For a party as large as Golkar, it is indeed a little puzzling if not embarrassing that it cannot decide such a crucial matter.

Why is this the case? For one, it is obvious that the main difficulty for Golkar in making such decision stems from the fact that the party has no viable candidate of its own to challenge SBY in the presidential election. In the eyes of voters, Golkar Chair Jusuf Kalla, is more popular as the candidate for VP in the same SBY-JK package than as a candidate for president on his own. That is, at least, what many surveys and polls have suggested so far.

Those who want Golkar to nominate its own presidential candidate other than JK also face indecision. They cannot agree on who the candidate should be. Some within the party have suggested the Governor of Yogyakarta, Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, as a possible candidate. Yet the base of his support within the party remains unclear.

Second, the difficulty for both SBY and JK to decide on the future of their partnership is also due to the nature of Indonesi’s politics. The democratization process since 1998 has revealed the true nature of Indonesian politics as one of the most competitive and pluralistic political systems in the world.

Within such a system, no political party could emerge as the dominant victor in the general elections. While most parties, including the gurem (tiny) ones, often brag they might get 20 percent of the votes, the truth is not one is sufficiently confident they can easily achieve that target. Consequently, coalition building becomes extremely difficult before the general elections.

This situation allows any politician to declare herself or himself a candidate for president but makes him or her unable to name a VP choice. Even former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, whose party is predicted to get more than 20 percent of the votes, finds it difficult to find a candidate to be her running mate. In other words, everyone will refrain from naming his or her running mate.

Speculation on the future coalition between SBY and JK, and between PD and Golkar, should be understood within this context. Both SBY and JK are facing the predicament of the competitive and pluralistic nature of Indonesian politics.

This same predicament makes postauthoritarian Indonesian politics more interesting than politics during the New Order era. When no one can dominate politiccally, democracy will continue to survive. Consequently, democracy may have a better chance to consolidate further. Which is good for the country, and its people.

The writer is executive director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

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Most Golkar regional branches want their own president

The Jakarta Post
February 20, 2009
Adianto P. Simamora

Golkar looks likely to nominate a presidential candidate from within the party, after most regional members vowed to have a candidate of their own.

With Vice President and party chairman Jusuf Kalla giving his blessing to the move, many party officials are convinced Kalla's partnership with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono may soon be over.

Leaders of the Golkar Party's provincial branches gathered Thursday at Kalla's residence, saying they had reached an agreement to press the party to pick its own candidate for the presidency.

Kalla invited 33 heads of the party's branches to his official residence, a day after the party's national meeting, to grant his approval of the branches' proposal, Kalla's inner circle said.

Senior Golkar member and close Kalla aide Firman Subagyo said the provincial branch leaders had met with Kalla to voice their demands that Golkar have its own presidential candidate.

"This is positive input, but not yet a binding decision," Firman told The Jakarta Post.

"The final say will be made during the party's meeting after the legislative election."

Uu Rukmana, Golkar West Java chairman, said Kalla had supported the call for the party to name its own presidential candidate.

"He has agreed. He said `It's your right.' And because all the provincial branches agree unanimously, the party's central board has no choice but to follow," he said.

He added that after Kalla expressed his agreement, representatives from the North Maluku branch said they would nominate Kalla.

Golkar's regulations state that each branch at the provincial, municipal and regency level, as well as members of the central board and affiliated organizations, may vote to decide to nominate the party's presidential candidate.

If all regional branches support the proposal, then they are assured of winning the party vote.

Golkar deputy chairman Agung Laksono agreed that regional branch unity indicated the party would nominate its own candidate, threatening to end the Yudhoyono-Kalla partnership.

"Actually, we've already begun selecting our own presidential candidates. We hope to get all candidate lists from the branches by March at the latest," he said.

Golkar advisory board chairman Surya Paloh has also asked the party to nominate its own candidate.

Mohammad Qodari, executive director of pollster Indo Barometer, said rising calls for the party to pick its own candidate showed there was dissatisfaction with the incumbent team of Yudhoyono and Kalla.

"It's a strong sign that the rift between Yudhoyono and Kalla could widen," he said.

He added many Golkar members were upset with Yudhoyono's continued reluctance to officially declare Kalla his running mate, during the Democratic Party's national meeting earlier this month.

"That anger was stoked further after a Democratic Party executive `insulted' Golkar by saying it would only get 2.5 percent of votes in the legislative elections," Qodari said.

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Indonesian Clerics Flex Political Muscles

Olivia Rondonuwu

JAKARTA, Feb. 16 (Reuters) - Parliamentary and presidential elections in Indonesia this year may hinge on how the public reacts to a directive from the country's top Islamic council that all Muslims must vote or risk going to hell.

The controversial edict from the Indonesian Council of Ulama, which consists of elected clerics and scholars, does not state which parties or candidates voters should choose.

But it may encourage Muslims to vote for Islamist candidates and push the country away from secularism toward a more socially rigid government -- not necessarily a plus for foreign investors.

"It's in the interests of some MUI members to maximise the votes of various Islamic parties," said Greg Fealy, an expert in Indonesian politics and Islam at the Australian National University.

Indonesia's plethora of political parties mean relatively small shifts among voters could potentially determine which groups form alliances in the April 9 general election and which field candidates in the presidential election in July.

A recent poll shows reform-minded President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party in the lead with 23 percent support, but he may still need to turn to some of the small Islamist parties or his current ally Golkar to form a coalition.

At this stage, 20-30 percent of those polled are still undecided.

PUSHING ISLAMIST AGENDA

Officially secular, Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, about 85 percent of its 226 million people.

Most are moderates, but some of the small, hardline groups, which are represented in MUI, have pushed Islamist agendas, undermining Indonesia's reputation for tolerance and threatening some of its religious and ethnic minorities.

"What is MUI these days, religious body or party?", said Adhitya Wisena, a Muslim who works at a fish shop in Jakarta.

Under MUI's influence last year, the government imposed restrictions on an Islamic sect, Ahmadiyya, and pushed ahead with a controversial anti-pornography law that some minorities, including Bali's Hindus and Papua's Christians, consider a threat to their art and culture.

Several districts in Indonesia have introduced sharia bylaws, for instance requiring women to wear headscarves regardless of their faith.

Islamists are also likely to have economic nationalist and protectionist views, which despite their own ostensibly liberal tendencies Yudhoyono and his predecessor Megawati Sukarnoputri have already had a tough time resisting.

Set up by former president Suharto in 1975 in an attempt to control political Islam, part of MUI's role was to endorse government policies such as family planning.

But with Suharto's ouster in 1998 and a shift towards greater democracy and freedom of expression, MUI has grown in political importance and is increasingly influenced by conservatives and hardliners within its ranks.

"Although MUI says it has representatives from all major Muslim organisations, there is a disproportionate influence by some small conservative, Islamist groups," said Fealy, the Indonesian expert at Australian National University.

"That partly explains some of the decisions we have seen on Ahmadiyya (and) the anti-porno bill."

Fealy said MUI's influence on public policy was likely to grow, as Indonesia's economy becomes more "Islamicised", for example with the increasing importance of Islamic financing and the business of certifying food as halal, or allowed, in Islam.

"All the halal certification is managed by MUI and that generates a lot of revenue from companies who want their product certified," he said.

"Islamic banks, Islamic insurance companies, Islamic pawn shops all have religious scholars advising them and more often than not they are from MUI. In reality, this is very lucrative for them."

YOGA AND SMOKING

MUI's fatwa -- a legally nonbinding moral decree – requiring all Muslims to vote is not the council's first attempt to influence an election outcome.

In 1999, MUI ordered Muslims to vote for Muslim candidates, a deliberate strike against Megawati and her PDI-P party, among Indonesia's most secular and which then had a high proportion of non-Muslim officials.

It has put pressure on the government to pursue pro-Islam policies, and issued fatwas against liberalism and pluralism, and on lifestyle, health and social issues.

At its national fatwa council meeting in January, MUI banned yoga for Muslims if it involved Hindu chants and meditation, and said it was sinful to smoke in public, and for children and pregnant women to smoke.

But it refrained from banning under-age marriage, despite a recent public outcry when a cleric married a 12-year-old girl.

The expanding number of controversial fatwas is of increasing concern for many of Indonesia's elite, religious minorities, and Muslim moderates.

"The edicts are out of date, pointless, and counterproductive for the interests of the nation," wrote M. Syafi'i Anwar, executive director of the International Centre for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP) in an opinion piece in the Jakarta Post.

(Additional reporting by Sunanda Creagh)

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Gerindra is becoming more confident

SINDO
16 February 2009

Gerindra, the Greater Indonesia Movement, says it increasingly confident of its prospects in the coming elections. The chief of Gerindra's Advisory Board, Prabowo Subianto claims that it now has ten million card carrying members, which it has achieved in the one year since its foundation.

The party's target is to reach a membership of 15 million by the end of this month, said Prabowo at a meeting of the party's cadres. He said Gerindra was the party of the poor, of the little man. 'For anyone who wants to improve their circumstances, Gerindra is the party for you,' he said. When the party was founded one year ago, it set itself a target of 12 million votes. We have achieved that, said Prabowo, and we are growing fast.

[Prabowo, former son-in-law of the late dictator. Suharto, was involved in massive human rights violations in the closing days of Suharto's New Order.]

Aiming for the top job

In a comment on the Gerindra claims, Aboepriyadi Santoso. a leading political commentator, said that the claim that they would reach reach 15 million members was fantastic and many dont doubt the party's popularity among lower and upper middle-class people.It should be noted that the party has grown out of the peasants' organisation, HKTI that was set up by the Yogya economist Suhardi; the movement has now come under the leadership of Prabowo.

They changed the name of HKTI into Gerindra and have been engaged in a massive campaign with a huge budget, assisted by Prabowo's younger brother Hashim who has been exporting huge amounts of oil to Kazakhstan. They have spent almost one trillion rupiahs in TV ads under the slogan of nationalism and the greatness of Indonesia.

Without getting involved in complicated statistics, Prabowo reminds the general public that Indonesia has massive resources that need to be exploited. The campaign has also employed the services of two US media consultants.

Permadi, speaking on behalf of Gerindra on Netherlands Radio, said that Prabowo is projecting himself as a person with nationalist and populist characteristics., with the charisma of Sukarno. Another commentator said that Prabowo has recruiting young politicians. His party has brought together a number of his fellow officers from Kopassus, the army's elite corps, including Muchdi Purwopranjono [recently acquitted under dubious circumstances of involvement in the murder of human rights activist, Munir], Glenny Kauripan and Johnny Wahab.

He speaks of the need of an iron fist like that wielded by Suharto

Wilson, a former student activist, warned that fascism grew out of the feeling of desperation of the middle class in the absence of a left-wing movement. But he doubted whether Gerindra would succeed in achieving the 25% threshold in order to be able to go forward as a candidate for president. This was very unlikely, unless he manages to enter into a coalition.

True, he had six hours of talks with Megawati Sukarnoputri but the PDI-P (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia-Perjuangan, Indonesian Democratic party Struggle) has not yet decided on its strategy and whether this would include a pairing between Megawati and Prabowo.

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KPUD claims fund shortage amidst new ballot system

The Jakarta Post
February 17, 2009
Agnes Winarti

The Jakarta General Election Commission (KPUD) claims it is short of the funds necessary to prepare for the 2009 general elections in April.

“We estimate that we need Rp 10 billion (US$1 million) to run awareness campaigns on the general elections, while we only have a total budget of Rp 100 million,” KPUD chairman Juri Ardiantoro told reporters at City Hall on Monday.

“It is only enough to produce stickers.

“The 2009 elections have turned out to be a lot more complicated than the previous ones.” A challenge ahead of this year’s elections, he said, was introducing people to the new voting system, where voters mark the ballot paper instead of perforating it.

“Most people are still not aware of the new system. Many of the legislative candidates do not understand the system.”

There are 38 political parties participating in the legislative elections, with 2,283 candidates running for legislative positions and 41 candidates for the Regional Representative Council (DPD).

They are vying for 94 seats available in the City Council, 21 in the House of Representatives and four in the DPD.

There are approximately 7 million voters in the capital.

“We have requested assistance from the administration to, for example, provide posters on the general elections,” Juri said.

Governor Fauzi Bowo has responded, promising assistance.

“However, we are expecting a reference from the central government [about the assistance],” Fauzi said.

The funds are not only needed to introduce people to the new voting system, but to raise awareness among candidates of election regulations, the KPUD said.

Head of the campaign working unit at the KPUD, Dahlia Umar, said the KPUD sent seven warning letters to three political parties — Golkar, Democrat Party and Gerindra (The Great Indonesia Movement Party) — which allegedly violated election regulations by placing campaign materials in prohibited areas.

“After a political party gets a warning letter, it has its open campaign schedule reduced by a round or one week. The penalty goes for the party as well as its individual candidate,” Dahlia said.

“Therefore, we urge all participants to stop placing campaign materials in prohibited spots such as Jl. Gatot Subroto, Jl. Rasuna Said and Semanggi areas,” Dahlia said.

According to the KPUD regulation, there are 21 prohibited spots — including bridges, electricity poles and flyovers as well as main roads such as Jl. Sudirman, Jl. Thamrin, Jl. Gatot Subroto, Jl. MT Haryono, Jl. Rasuna Said, Jl. Medan Merdeka, Jl. Ancol Raya, Jl. Gunung Sahari and Cawang thoroughfares.

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Max Lane: It’s a Cult of Personality Among
Candidates Who Have No Personality

Tempo Magazine
No. 25/IX
February 11-23, 2009
National

Election fever mounts as candidates discuss strategic alliances and running mates, but academic and Indonesia expert Max Lane says this may be an election characterized by disappointment—for candidates and constituents alike.

Back-packing through Indonesia as a university student in the late 1960s, Lane was intrigued by a country with a rich political history, though he says you may not see much of that richness today.

A Visiting Fellow with the Department of Malay Studies, National University of Singapore, Lane sat down with Tempo, amidst his own research and interviews, to share his thoughts on the state of Indonesian politics today. Excerpts of the interview:

You launched a book last year, Unfinished Nation: Indonesia before and after Suharto, how is it going?

The English edition was launched in June last year, the Indonesian edition in 2007. It’s going very well, I think we might have to reprint soon and it’s only been out seven months.

We’re coming into the national elections and accountability of politicians has always been seen as a problem. Can you comment on that?

I think in many respects, the formal structures, the rules and procedures that have been set out—60-70 percent of them are on the right track for a better system. Although, rules and procedures still advantage political parties with no members, but a lot of money. And they disadvantage parties that have members, but no money. There are 44 parties in the upcoming election. On the whole, this system has created a situation
where in reality none of these parties are particularly popular. I think that’s why if you watch television at the moment, or the talk shows, or read the commentaries, the most commonly discussed phenomenon in relation to the election is golput. And it’s not because people don’t want to vote. In 1999, the voter turnout was 93 percent. If you do the sums, the most popular party in the last election was Golkar with 22 percent. But that’s 22 percent of 60 percent, because only 60 percent of the people voted. Which is what, 15 percent? You’ve got 15 percent of the entire population supporting the most ‘popular’ party.

And I think in this election, in every case, the general trend will be a further drop in voter turnout.

And how has this lack of voter confidence and enthusiasm come about?

There are two issues; one is the long-term deep and fundamental impact of not having any real politics for 30 years, just controlled situations. When Suharto left there was nothing there. You’re starting from scratch in terms of genuine political activism on a national scale. But the second is the rules and procedures, because the parties in the current parliament passed laws that made it almost impossible for any new party without money to be registered.

You have to have an office everywhere you claim to have a branch, you have to have offices across the archipelago. And a lot of genuine parties starting up from a grass-roots base have active members, but they can’t set up 200 offices throughout the country. But if you have no members and a lot of money, you can just buy some members and some offices for show.

You say it’s a structural problem, that’s why truly popular parties can’t participate. Is there a solution?

All you really need to do is go back to the 1999 electoral law, the first elections after Suharto. If you had that electoral law, I’m sure you would have three or four parties participating in the elections that would be qualitatively different to the parties you have now. Everybody knows the current parties are in it for the monetary gain of being able to participate in the system.

And every one comments, if you read the news reports on political parties in Indonesia in the context of the elections, there’s no discussion of the state of the economy and policies, there’s no discussion of the education system and policies—99 percent of all political discussion now is who will be who’s vice-presidential candidate. It’s all about what coalitions are needed to win, there’s nothing about actual policies. If the 1999 election laws had been in place, I can think of three parties, all of which were small, but had serious [voter] bases, they would be participating in the elections now—and that would produce a different mood, a different atmosphere. A change in electoral law wouldn’t guarantee big change overnight, but it would open up the system more. Right now, if you don’t have money, forget it.

Indonesia seems to have a ‘cult’ of personality around its leaders, why do you think this is?

It’s a cult of personality among candidates who have no personality.

If you look, 80 percent of posters are about parties with no political slogan, and the others are a picture of someone with slogans like “vote for the creative one”, “we are for the people”; completely abstract and meaningless slogans.

There was an interesting editorial in Kompas recently about narcissism. Narcissism in the Indonesian political elite, where everyone’s happy having their photo on display. It’s all centred on personality, even though none of these people have any personal following. It’s a reflection of the vacuum. Why is there a vacuum? Because all of the parties come out of the same political and social elite, and they’re all satisfied with the current policy framework.

There has been a lot of talk around the rise of conservative Islam in politics. Do you think parties like PKS will have a large following in this election?

My half-guess is that their following will remain about the same as it is now. They (PKS) lost a lot of support when they came out with political advertising promoting Suharto. But, I think the other thing you have to note about the Islamic parties is that in the provincial elections they haven’t been doing very well. And secondly, the general trend is for a situation in the past where there are two big Islamic parties. Masyumi, which doesn’t exist anymore and MUI, which still exists, but as a social-religious organization. These two, which controlled 30-35 percent of the population between them—went from two very strong parties to 10 or 15 parties fighting among themselves. So, I think the trend of Islam going up is actually an illusion. But, you have to ask another question, if it’s not really going up, why do people talk about it so much? I think in terms of outlook, there’s nothing else. You don’t have the old-style Suharto developmentalism, because there’s no development. You have nothing on the Left, you have a small part of the political spectrum represented. [PKS] has a, kind of clear, world view associated with its politics, everyone else is just a personality. At least political Islam has some direction.

What does Megawati stand for? What’s SBY’s world view? On his party placards it says ‘Nationalist Religist’. What does that mean? But, the Islamic ones, especially PKS, even though they won’t admit it, are directed by Islamic Shari’a law. The West Java Governor, a PKS member, just banned a traditional West Javanese dance with a slight erotic character to it. They say their long-term direction is not Islamic law, but as soon as
they get a bit of power, we can see what kind of regulations they bring in.

Indonesia has been lauded as a success for democracy in the past, but in light of the recent violence in Sumatra, do you think this election could be violent? There’s a lot of money at stake for those participating. A lot of people invest a lot of money in campaigning in the hope that if they win, in a very unclear manner, the money will return. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get tensions here and there with different scuffles. But
I think the general attitude among society at large will be lack of interest.

You were an admirer of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s work, translating many of his texts. You also began long-running journal Inside Indonesia. What, or who, do you think are the inspiring and challenging voices coming out of Indonesia today?

I don’t know that I would identify any one commentator, but I think the Indonesian media is very interesting to read. To be honest I think it is 5,000 or 10,000 percent more interesting to read than the Australian media, which has almost nothing in it. First of all, in Indonesia you have so many different newspapers, there’s a lot of choice. And also because Indonesia has come out of a period of struggle against dictatorship, many journalists have a background as activists. Or if they weren’t activists themselves, they went to university or they were formed in this period of struggle and ferment. So that brings a different kind of attitude to journalism, an experience that a lot of people going through journalism courses in Australian universities would not have. Thirdly, you have a much bigger involvement of academics, writers, literary people writing in
the media, than you do in Australia. But I think as time goes on, from the time when university students were active en masse, that feeling will deteriorate; these media organizations are owned by big business. Up until six months ago, I thought television here was quite good, but that has deteriorated too. People still watch it; they just shake their heads and walk away.

You say student activism influenced today’s media and brought about huge change in the past. Where is it today?

I don’t think it’s died off. It’s just become atomized, fragmented. Before 1998, everyone had a common target, easy to identify: overthrow Suharto. Now Suharto’s gone, some things have improved, especially in politics. The fear factor has gone; you don’t have to be worried about arrest or censorship. And while some romanticize the time, most people don’t want to go back to being afraid. But, there’s still enormous problems. Campaigning to solve these problems is harder than just concentrating on overthrowing one person. There are lots of groups and movements in provinces and cities, but I’m not sure how long it will take to go from atoms, to fragments, to something more substantial—because the main parties want to keep
them out. I’m sure the process will continue, but it will be slow, there will need to be a crisis, a crack or jolt to speed it up.

Are you optimistic about this young democracy?

I am optimistic, but I think it’s going to be quite a gruelling process. It’s basically going to require all sorts of groups, which are there but are currently outside the party system, to find a way to force themselves into that realm. Women’s groups, student groups, unions—there’s a huge amount of activity, but it’s not mobilized into the arena where people are struggling for power.

You have no charismatic figures in parliament. Megawati never says anything, never appears on television. SBY keeps his hair nice and neatly parted. The fourth-largest country in the world, with many problems and a very rich political history...but at the moment, there’s really nothing.

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Indonesia Polls Show Hard-Line Islamists Losing Ground

The Wall Street Journal
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tom Wright

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The popularity of hard-line Islamic parties is on the wane in Indonesia as it prepares for presidential elections this year, making the Southeast Asian nation a rare example in the Muslim world of a place where secular democracy is taking hold.

That comes as a surprise to some. Five years ago, when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono became Indonesia's first democratically elected leader, the nation was viewed by Western governments and
analysts as similar to Pakistan—a place where extremist Islamists were gaining a stronghold.

At that time, homegrown terrorists in Indonesia were mounting attacks on hotels, embassies and nightclubs. Some local governments had begun passing Islamic Shariah laws that included banning alcohol and requiring women to wear headscarves.

Since then, proponents of Islamic law have lost ground. Mr. Yudhoyono's centrist administration, backed by the U.S. and other Western governments, has presided over a war on terrorism that is widely seen as successful. Scores of Islamic militants have been arrested by a police anti-terrorist unit and convicted by Indonesian courts. While some protested these prosecutions, most Indonesians supported the actions.The few militants believed to remain at large haven't carried out any major attacks in Indonesia in the past four years.

Shariah laws in force in a few conservative areas, such as Indonesia's Southern Sulawesi and West Sumatra regions, haven't captured the imagination of the wider public. After a surge in 2003, no local governments have issued Shariah laws since 2006, scholars of Islam in Indonesia say.

The hard-line Islamist political parties that backed putting Islamic law into the constitution and championed local Shariah laws are slipping in popularity, too.

Politicians who thought these Islamic parties had deep support "were completely wrong," says Anis Baswedan, president of Jakarta's Paramadina University, which specializes in Islamic studies.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Indonesia Wednesday on her four-nation Asian tour, underscoring the country's importance to Washington as a beacon of moderation in the Muslim world.

The latest polls for parliamentary elections in April, which will be followed in July by a nationwide presidential vote, show Indonesia's two largest Islamist parties are on track to draw a combined 7% of the vote this year, down from nearly 16% in 2004.

In the same poll, 43% of respondents said they would vote for Mr. Yudhoyono in the presidential race, compared with 19% for former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, who also backs secular government and remains popular in some areas. In the poll, 23% said they would vote for Mr. Yudhoyono's Democrat Party, which would make it the largest in Parliament. That's a jump from 7.5% in the last elections, and potentially will reduce his dependency on Islamic party coalition partners.

Mr. Yudhoyono isn't a shoo-in for re-election, especially if Indonesia's commodity-dependent economy continues to weaken as expected.

But for now his chances are looking good, in part because the former army general has restored a sense of law and order to Indonesia since the chaos following the fall of authoritarian president Suharto in 1998.

His administration has clamped down on corruption, transferred cash directly to Indonesia's poorest families, and allowed technocrats to run the economy, which continues to outperform many others in Asia.

"Yudhoyono doesn't even have an Islamist challenger—that's an amazing fact," given earlier expectations of Islamic party gains, says Marcus Mietzner, an expert on Indonesian Islam at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Among the 88% of Indonesia's 140 million people who follow Islam, most believers adhere to a moderate brand of the faith. About 10% of voters believe Islam should be at the center of the state, analysts say.

For many years, radical Islamists played a marginal role in Indonesia. Mr. Suharto, an army general who enjoyed U.S. backing as a bulwark against Communism, saw hard-line Muslim leaders as a threat to his government during his 32 years in power and took steps to prevent them from organizing. His government strictly supervised Muslim groups and some hard-liners fled the country in the 1980s to fight with the mujahedin in Afghanistan.

Mr. Suharto was forced from power in May 1998 amid student-led pro-democracy protests which led to the country's first free parliamentary elections in 1999. In the chaos after Mr. Suharto's resignation, Islamists formed new political parties that became increasingly popular amid the lawlessness and corruption that pervaded the country then. Some provincial parliaments started passing local Shariah bylaws and Hamzah Haz, the vice-president under Ms. Megawati—a secularist who was appointed president by Indonesia's parliament in 2001—came from an Islamist party that was part of Ms. Megawati's coalition.

U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan further bolstered the popularity of Islamist groups. In the 2004 elections—the first to directly elect the president—Islamist political parties did particularly well, led by the Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS, which campaigned for Shariah law and an end to corruption and
drew 7.5% of the vote compared to 1.4% in parliamentary elections in 1999.

Mr. Yudhoyono, who came to power that year, relied on the PKS and other Islamic parties to shore up his coalition. But the president, an avowed secularist, also undercut the attraction of Islamist parties with his moves to restore order.

His administration scored a major coup by arresting scores of al-Qaeda-linked Indonesian and Malaysian terrorists who carried out a series of attacks against Western targets, including the 2002 Bali nightclub bombs that killed 202 tourists, mostly foreigners. Many Islamist party leaders were slow to condemn the
terrorist attacks, helping to dent their public image and throwing more popular support behind Mr. Yudhoyono.

Some hard-line Islamists don't like how things turned out. Irfan Awwas, executive director of the Indonesian Council of Mujahidin, a radical political group that supports Shariah, said Mr. Yudhoyono is "America's pet."

"What he cares most about is his political ambition," Mr. Awwas says.

Some critics say Mr. Yudhoyono has pandered to Muslim hard-liners. They cite his party's backing of an
anti-pornography bill passed last year that many people believe discriminates against non-Muslim cultures by potentially targeting, among others, traditional Balinese dancers.

Still, Islamist parties have sensed a change in the public mood and become more moderate, analysts say. The PKS has dropped its calls for Islamic law and is working to integrate into Indonesia's secular political system.

"Radicalism will not have any place in this country," says Zulkieflimansyah, a PKS parliamentarian who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name, and is running again this year. These days, he says, "capturing the middle ground is the only choice."

—Yayu Yuniar contributed to this article.

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Indonesian Politics: Personalities Overshadow Policies

Sunanda Creagh and Telly Nathalia

JAKARTA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - As Indonesia grapples with what could be its worst economic crisis in a decade, its political parties have provided few solutions other than nationalist ones in the run-up to the April elections.

Southeast Asia's biggest economy faces a sharp slowdown in economic growth as demand for its key commodities slumps, while domestic demand, the mainstay of the economy, is likely to falter as companies lay off more workers.

Businesses -- whether large or small, domestic or foreign -- want whoever wins the election to tackle economic growth by addressing widespread graft, poor infrastructure, offputting labour laws, land reform, rule of law, and conflicting legislation arising from regional autonomy.

"We would like to see political parties be more transparent and understand the concerns of the business community," said Sofjan Wanandi, chairman of the Employers' Association of Indonesia.

"We need a government that is willing to push infrastructure, inject capital into the market, which would raise consumer spending, buy domestic products, then we're going to be saved."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose Democrat Party is ahead in the polls with support of 23 percent, has tackled graft and delivered strong economic growth during his term.

To counter the impact of the global financial crisis, his government has announced a $6 billion fiscal stimulus package, with tax breaks and infrastructure spending to spur growth and create jobs, and is considering a "Buy Indonesian" campaign to drive domestic demand.

Indonesia plans to tap the global bond markets to fund this spending, but some economists warn the stimulus may not be enough to sustain growth that's forecast at 4-5 percent in 2009 -- high by some standards, but below the 6 percent needed to create jobs.

With parliamentary elections in April and presidential elections in July, many investors are worried about the prospect of a policy vacuum at such a critical time, particularly as few of the parties contesting the elections have said how they would deal with the crisis.

When leaders and senior officials from the main political parties were asked to present their economic policies to APINDO's members earlier this month, they focused mainly on the problems but not on how to solve them.

"We haven't heard a single clear policy yet from any of the 30 parties. I feel sorry for the people of Indonesia," said Hertanto T. Surya, a manager at Indonesia's Bank Victoria.

PERSONALITIES VS POLICIES

Much of the debate in Indonesia ahead of elections has focused on the personalities, rather than the policies, and in particular, which politicians will run for president or vice president.

Former president Megawati Sukarnoputri said her opposition PDI-P party, second in the opinion polls with support of 17.1 percent, would "prioritise domestic business over foreign investment", but gave no further details.

Golkar, which dominated politics under former president Suharto and which is currently Yudhoyono's coalition partner, is also taking a more nationalist stance.

Golkar's Jusuf Kalla, who is Yudhoyono's vice president, said his party would "evaluate unfair energy contracts", citing Indonesia's giant Natuna and Tangguh gas fields, and Newmont Mining Corp (NEM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The terms of U.S. major Exxon Mobil Corp's (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) role in the Natuna D-Alpha gas field and of contracts to supply LNG from Tangguh gas field to China's CNOOC (0883.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), and South Korea's K-Power and POSCO (005490.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are in dispute, while Newmont's Indonesian unit has faced several problems over mining rights. "How do you get investment if you play on such a nationalistic agenda?" said
Ananda Idris, an energy executive.

Even those who claim to have policies are not necessarily willing to divulge them. Wiranto, a Suharto-era general who wants to run for president, told Gatra magazine in February that his policies were a closely guarded secret.

"Of course, we are prepared. I have my economic and legal advisors. We have already developed some ideas that will become our economic policy at the time of the presidential debate," he told Gatra.

"For now, I haven't made these policies public because I am protecting their secrecy."

(Additional reporting by Karima Anjani; Writing by Sara Webb; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Jeremy Laurence)

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Factbox: Indonesian Elections: Party Policies

JAKARTA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Indonesia holds parliamentary elections on April 9, but few of its political parties have said how they would tackle the global economic slowdown. Here's what the political parties told the Employers' Association of Indonesia at a recent three-day seminar.

DEMOCRAT PARTY

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's party, which promises to tackle graft and drive economic growth, is leading in the polls with 23 percent, following three cuts in the fuel price.

It said it would increase the minimum wage and link it to higher productivity, provide subsidies and low-interest loans to rural communities to achieve rice self-sufficiency, streamline the permits system in the mining and energy sector, limit exports of raw goods to strengthen domestic industry, and cut taxes.

GOLKAR PARTY

The late president Suharto's political party, which was in power for three decades, has plummeted in the polls to just 13.3 percent, and is divided over who to field as its presidential candidate.

Jusuf Kalla, Indonesia's vice president and Golkar chairman, said the party would evaluate "unfair" energy contracts. "This is very important. How we have been dealing with Natuna, the contract was not fair; Tangguh which is not fair for this nation; how we see Newmont, that (was) not fair for this nation".

INDONESIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF STRUGGLE (PDI-P)

The party of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri has come under attack by nationalists for her policy of selling assets to foreigners. PDI-P is second in the polls with 17.1 per cent.

She told business leaders "We ... prioritise domestic business over foreign investment", adding that "on the problem of coordination between central and regional governments, I feel very strongly that when they were given that regional power, when you look at the way it has turned out, we have gone too fast since the time of reformasi."

NATIONAL AWAKENING PARTY (PKB)

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid was forced out of the party, which faced a leadership struggle in 2008. The party wants to focus on an agriculture-based economy, improve agricultural infrastructure, and increase the productivity of state-owned enterprises.

Muhaimin Iskandar, chairman of PKB said: "Our focus is to develop the agriculture sector as the backbone of the economy, we must return to basics. Fertiliser subsidies must go directly to farmers. Currently, subsidies go to the factories and fertiliser has been misused by speculators, leading to shortages in the market. Foreign debt should be renegotiated and the funding could be used to develop our infrastructure."

THE UNITED DEVELOPMENT PARTY (PPP)

As one of the few Islamic parties officially recognised during the Suharto era, the PPP is a minor party and trails in the polls, with an approval rating of 3.3 per cent.

Suryadharma Ali, PPP chairman said: "Protectionism is a policy of all countries. We have to give priority to domestic business."

PROSPEROUS JUSTICE PARTY (PKS)

The small but influential Islamist party PKS has won a couple of key provincial elections with its commitment to "clean, caring, and professional" government.

Tifatul Sembiring, PKS chairman, said: "The government has to be careful on fuel subsidy. We will peg the fuel price (so it is) the same as the market price and not become trapped with subsidies."

* Zulkieflimansyah, a PKS member of parliament, said: "It's impossible for our economy to be built without investment. We are not anti-foreign (investment) but the regulation and the choice of local partners has to be clear. Based on our research, foreign companies don't transfer technology know-how to their local partners."

(Reporting by Sunanda Creagh, Karima Anjani, Telly Nathali, and Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Sara Webb, Bill Tarrant and Jeremy Laurence)

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Papua Governor warns of possible conflicts during elections

Cenderawasih Pos
20 February 2009

[All items are abridged in translation.]

The governor of the province of Papua is worried that the majority vote principle is likely to cause conflicts between the parties or even within parties. This is because it intensifies the competition between candidates in their bid to win a seat. He has urged the local election supervisory agencies to act in a spirit of independence and prevent any unwanted intervention.

The possibility of horizontal conflict could occur over the manipulation of data about voters. Such a problem occurered in 2004 in the district of Mimika when the local electoral commission (KPUD) was implicated in changing the data about voters in a way that helped one of the contesting parties. Another danger was what he called the 'trading of votes', especially in the more remote districts in the interior.

'The amount of money invested by the government in the elections is huge and it would be too bad if the event were tarnished by cheating and manipulation,' he said.

He also pointed to the large number of candidates competing for a small number of seats. Fifteen candidates will be competing for four seats in the DPD (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah); 1,103 candidates will be competing for 56 seats in the DPRP (Papuan Regional Assembly), and in each of the districts, between 200 - 500 candidates will be competing for 20 to 25 seats. It was crucial for the local supervisory agencies to preserve their neutrality, behaving like referees in a football match. Cheating incidents, should they occur, will be very difficult to resolve, he said. [No figures were given for the number of candidates for the national parliament, the DPR.]

The chief of police in the province has meanwhile called on the general public to help preserve a calm atmosphere, to ensure that the elections run smoothly. He said that the police would not hesitate to take firm action against anyone who causes trouble. 'If there is an escalation in armed actions, the police will act firmly,' he said.

He foresaw several possible disturbances, such as fighting betwen the supporters of different parties, acts of sabotage by means of holding public meetings (sic) and attacks launched by armed separatist groups.He then went into detail about the number of police to be posted at the various polling stations, with a higher number in places regarded as rawan (unstable). One area of disruption might occur around the supply to the polling stations of the equipment and voting slips.

As regards areas regarding as being unstable where attacks by separatists were likely to occur, he said that the police would ask the army help the police in safeguarding security during the election. He said that this did not mean that soldiers would be on guard at the polling stations but that they would stand guard in areas likely to be attacked by separatists.

'If armed separatist groups take any action that can disrupt the elections, the security forces will launch an all-out action to restore security,' he said, adding that this may include chasing off the groups in questions.

The bupati (district chief) of Jayawijaya has also pointed to the possibility of conflict in the newly established districts. This was more likely, he said, because there was only one electoral commission for five districts, making the likelihood of conflict much greater.He urged the political parties to behave responsibly, bearing in mind that the elections were being held to serve the interests of the people, not to serve personal interests. In one district, Wawalegama, there are 39 candidates competing for three seats. He said that any problems that arise should be resolved locally and not taken to the higher administrative body. He also urged anyone wanting to hold demonstrations to confine their activities to the locality.

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Indonesia President Hopeful Unrepentant on Rights Abuse

JAKARTA, Feb. 21 (AFP) - A former son-in-law of Indonesian dictator Suharto running for president said Friday his "conscience is clear" over human rights abuses he committed as a senior army general.

Prabowo Subianto, a former commander of the notorious Kopassus special forces, told foreign reporters he was unrepentant over the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists in the dying days of Suharto's regime.

"In a certain administration we could say it was preventative detention, and if the regime changes, then we say it's kidnapping," said Prabowo, who is running in a July poll against opponents including incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, also an ex-general.

"I served with honour, my conscience is clear, I took responsibility. I consider myself a warrior, I consider myself an officer," he said.

Prabowo, once considered heir apparent to Suharto before the 1998 fall of his 32-year regime, was found guilty by a court of honour of "exceeding orders" and forced to retire over his confessed role in the kidnappings, over a dozen victims of which were never seen again.

He also stands accused of involvement in human rights abuses in East Timor, then under a brutal 24-year Indonesian occupation, and of orchestrating riots and mass rapes of Chinese women in Jakarta in 1998.

Prabowo has denied these accusations but said he remains barred from travelling to the United States since first being refused entry on human rights grounds in 2000.

Despite this chequered reputation, Prabowo said he is a committed democrat and is pinning his hopes of unseating the liberal Yudhoyono on a platform of reining in the free market and overcoming poverty by promoting agriculture.

Indonesia faces a "Malthusian bomb" of a surging population but the pro-market Yudhoyono has failed to reach the "double digit" growth necessary to lift the country out of poverty, Prabowo said.

Indonesia's economy grew 6.1 percent last year but 2009 growth is expected to slow to between 4.5 and 4.7 percent because of the global economic crisis.

Prabowo said Indonesia needs to focus on improving the welfare of the poor and promoting agriculture in order to break itself out of a "low growth trap".

He complained that the country had an "excess of luxury condominiums" while millions of people were without work.

"We do not dream of being like Western Europe or the United States. We do not dream that each Indonesian family can have two cars, a television in every room," he said.

"But we feel.... it's the right of every Indonesian family to have access to good schools, good health at achievable cost and access to jobs."

Prabowo was married to Suharto's daughter Siti Hediati Hariyadi, who goes by the name Titiek, but they divorced some years ago.

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Former Kopassus chief adopts bizarre poll tactic

SMH
February 23, 2009

Victims of the special forces unit have been hired as party candidates, writes Tom Allard in Jakarta.

A SOEHARTO-era commander of Indonesia's notorious Kopassus special forces unit has a novel way of deflecting concerns about grave human rights abuses on his watch as he contests this year's national
elections: he has hired some of the activists abducted and beaten by his troops as campaign workers and legislative candidates.

Prabowo Subianto, who is running a well-financed campaign for the presidency thanks to his billionaire brother, Hasyim Djojohadikusumo, was sacked from his military post in 1998 after a tribunal found
troops under his command kidnapped pro-democracy students.

He is also accused of orchestrating multiple abuses during Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and playing a role in the looting of Chinese businesses and the mass rape of Indonesian-Chinese women in Jakarta as Indonesia descended into chaos in 1998, the year the dictator Soeharto was ousted from power.

Prabowo, who fled to the Middle East after the fall of Soeharto, denies any wrongdoing. Still, the US continues to deny him a visa - highly problematic if he becomes president. "In a certain administration we could say it was preventive detention, and if the regime changes, then we say it's kidnapping," Mr Prabowo said on Friday of the activities of Kopassus's Rose Team, responsible for the abductions.

Three of those kidnapped now worked for his party, the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra. "Some say it's the Stockholm principle," he said in an often jocular address to correspondents in Jakarta. One of the former activists is his media officer while two are standing for seats in the new parliament.

Pius Lustrilanang is one of the legislative candidates, and was snatched off a Jakarta street by Kopassus forces in February 1998.

"I was forced to go into a car. My eyes were blindfolded," he told the Herald. "They interrogated me, tortured me and I was beaten. They held me for about two months."

Mr Lustrilanang said Mr Prabowo had apologised to him years ago but acknowledged the wealth behind the Prabowo campaign was a factor in joining the party after two attempts to stand for parliament for Megawati Soekarnoputri's PDI-P organisation.

"Look, I'm tired of siding with the wrong guys. I don't want to make that mistake again," Mr Lustrilanang said. "To me, Prabowo is a character who doesn't give up easily and is willing to learn. These elements are essentially important today as this country is still sunk in various problems."

Mr Prabowo, who previously attempted to launch a political career through Golkar, the party of Soeharto, is standing on a populist economic agenda with strong nationalist overtones.

Somewhat brazenly for a scion of Indonesia's elites who was once married to Soeharto's daughter and whose father was a finance minister in the Soeharto regime, he claims to head the "party of the dispossessed".

Gerindra claims a membership of 11.2 million and a stint as head of the Indonesian Farmers Association has given Mr Prabowo an extensive network of contacts. He has a powerful oratory style and his reputation as a charismatic strongman still carries appeal.

Polls show Gerindra has less than 5 per cent support, placing Mr Prabowo fourth or fifth among the presidential candidates.

Nonetheless, he is regarded as a dark horse in the poll. Gerindra has been blitzing the media with slickly produced TV ads. No party has more than 25 per cent support and candidates for the July poll will
be selected in coalition-building after the April elections. Mr Prabowo's enormous financial clout ensures he will have plenty to bring to the table once the horse-trading begins.

with Karuni Rompies

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Outsider Prompts 'General' Unease

The Australian Financial Review
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Jakarta Observed by Angus Grigg

It was a performance to remember, an act of sheer front.

Prabowo Subianto, the retired three-star general, spent two hours rewriting history last week in preparation for his tilt at the Indonesian presidency.

The son-in-law of former president Soeharto was deathly funny and worryingly convincing.

It was spin of the highest order.

The man who played a central role in Soeharto's New Order regime labelled the kidnapping of student activists in 1998 "preventative detention", while in East Timor he was just a soldier serving his country.

He had an answer for everything, even suggesting Indonesians should thank him for never staging a coup.

"I commanded 34 battalions and did not use them to continue the power of the New Order," he said.

"I wished I had led a coup, now that I think about it," he said, laughing with the crowd.

But there was one question Prabowo couldn't evade. In an address to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club he confirmed the United States had refused to issue him a visa.

This speaks to the seriousness of allegations made against him. In East Timor, for example, he is accused of funding gangs that tortured, murdered and kidnapped pro-independence figures.

Some believe he should be tried as a war criminal.

In the May 1998 riots that brought down Soeharto he is accused of using troops under his command to propagate rape and violence against the Chinese community in north Jakarta.

Despite volumes of testimony to the contrary, Prabowo maintains he "served with honour" and that his "conscience is clear".

Regardless, he should still be politically toxic in a country proud of its hard-won democracy and the reforms of the past decade.

This, however, is not the case.

Prabowo, while an outsider to become president, has re-emerged as a political force. His Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra, claims to have 11.2 million members and is forecast to win more than 7 per cent of seats at the national elections in April.

This would not be sufficient to give Prabowo a shot at the presidency - candidates need 20 per cent of seats - but would provide the basis for a coalition ticket.

If this were to happen the race could become very interesting.

Prabowo, with his presence, humour and command of the language, is a highly effective campaigner.

He also has huge financial resources, thanks to his businessman brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo, who has already poured many millions into a national TV campaign.

Another factor is Indonesia's demographics.

It's estimated that one in four voters are too young to remember the Soeharto era in any detail and therefore Prabowo is something of a cleanskin to them.

He could, with the right spin, represent change.

To this end his campaign has targeted the lower rungs of society and those left behind in the good years, who will be hardest hit in the present financial downturn.

"We have become the party of the dispossessed and the poor," he said.

That a gold-plated member of the Indonesian elite, who launched his campaign at a polo club owned by his family, can consider himself a man of the people is certainly curious.

Even more of a stretch, however, is his claim to have always been a democrat and advocate for reform, while systematically undermining democracy and human rights during his 28 years in the military.

"Prabowo is the most charismatic, enigmatic, unusual and weird guy I have ever known in my life," a defence analyst was quoted as saying in Adam Schwarz's book, A Nation In Waiting.

"He's also laudable and detestable . . . Pick an adjective and it fits."

Political and religious leader Amien Reis is less charitable, describing Prabowo as a "criminal" and a "mercenary intellectual".

Others have labelled him a "toy soldier" and "nut case".

Whatever his reputation, he can't be written off as he could well have a stake in the next government of Indonesia.

There is a suggestion that, while the presidency is the ultimate goal, he might settle for control of one or two powerful ministries.

If President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wins a second term, as the polls suggest, he is likely to once again assemble a "rainbow" cabinet to ensure parliamentary support for his legislative agenda.

If Gerindra were to gain about 7 per cent in the new parliament it could well ask for one or two cabinet seats in return for its support.

Prabowo has told some in Jakarta he is eyeing the mining and agricultural ministries - hardly surprising given his family's extensive interests in coalmining, corn production and palm oil plantations.

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Editorial: Election Fever

The Jakarta Post
Monday, February 23, 2009

Will Vice President Jusuf Kalla (JK) remain the running mate of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) or will JK challenge SBY in the July presidential election? Will the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) get more votes in the April 9 legislative election?

These are the hottest issues among the 170 million registered voters in Indonesia. They pay little attention to party platforms as they know it would only be false hope to expect the candidates to fulfil their promises. Meanwhile, millions of voters are still unsure of the voting system and the General Elections Commission (KPU) is still preoccupied by administrative matters including the as yet unfinished delivery of voting materials.

Many Indonesians believe that no matter how delicate the problem they can only overcome it at the last minutes. There is the fear that the rate of golput (vote abstention) will increase with this election over reports of the alleged rampant corruption of legislators at both the national and regional level.

But for many Indonesians, the April 9 legislative election is like a neighbor's party it would be impolite not to attend. With this kind of attitude, we may hope that voter turnout will remain high, although it would be difficult to maintain the more-than-70-percent participation seen 2004.

Many have predicted that SBY will win his second term if JK, who is also chairman of the country's largest political party, Golkar, continues to stay by his side. With all respect to other potential candidates, former president Megawati Soekarnoputri is probably SBY's strongest contender.

And again, with all respect to Megawati, it seems that her party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, has a better chance of winning the legislative election than she does of reversing her defeat in the 2004 presidential election.

But many elite members of Golkar, which was for all intents and purposes the sole political party during Soeharto's 32 year rule, think staying out of power since 1999 in enough. JK poses a difficult dilemma, because he does not have the central power in the party.

Judgement Day for the 38 political parties and their legislative candidates is approaching. Those who think they would make the best president of this republic for the next five years have been impatiently awaiting April 9.

There is nary a road or corner in this country clean from pictures of legislative candidates. This legislative election will be much more severe for the candidates, because unlike in the previous elections where voters voted for the party, this time voters can directly vote for their own candidates.

Although the legislative election is only 46 days ahead, it is still very difficult to detect election fever in the society. People are more enthusiastic about the presidential election, because the president will have much stronger impact on their life. Still, people are more concerned about the possible presidential candidates.

It is therefore difficult to expect a quality election as people still do not completely know the quality of the candidates, despite the rapidly approaching elections. This helps to explain why election fever is still undetected.

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Parties sign pact boosting commitment to fight graft

The Jakarta Post
February 26, 2009
Dicky Christanto

photo: Sign here please: A charter displaying the signatures of the leaders of all political parties contesting the upcoming election is shown to the public in a joint agreement against corruption at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in Jakarta on Wednesday. JP/Ricky Yudhistira

Leaders from all the political parties contesting the upcoming legislative election signed an agreement Wednesday to show their commitment to the fight against corruption.

Politicians from 38 parties competing in the national election and six other parties running for seats in the Aceh elections agreed that corruption was a serious crime for which heavier punishment was necessary.

Party representatives gathered at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to agree on actively participating in the fight against crime and eradicating graft within Indonesia.

They also vowed to play clean during the election and avoid any corrupt practices. The signed statement was displayed to the public following the ceremony.

KPK Chairman Antasari Azhar said the KPK had gathered the parties together to warn them against engaging in any corrupt activities during their campaigning this April.

“If we hear that any parties are using state funds to conduct campaign exercises during the general elections, we will immediately investigate the case. So don’t bother trying,” Antasari told reporters following the gathering.

Heavyweight politicians, including Golkar Party chairman and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’ (PDI-P) secretary general Pramono Anung, chairman of the Star Reform Party (PBR) Bursah Zarnubi, attended the ceremony.

The United Development Party (PPP) chairman and Minister for Small Scale Enterprises Suryadarma Ali and chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN) Sutrisno Bachir were among those seen at the gathering.

Pramono Anung of PDI-P said his party’s commitment to fighting corruption should be evident already based on their past efforts.

“Don’t forget that the KPK itself was born under the administration of our chairperson, Megawati Soekarnoputri,” he said.

PPP chairman Suryadarma Ali agreed that fighting corruption was necessary for achieving a more prosperous Indonesia in the future.

But despite the political rhetoric, a number of corruption scandals have tainted the reputation of the House of
Representatives, leading to speculation the signing of the agreement was nothing more than a political stunt in the lead up to the election.

Politicians and legislators from major parties such as Antoni Zeidra Abidin and Hamka Yamdu of Golkar Party, Agus Condro from PDI-P, Al Amin Nasution from PPP, Yusuf Emir Faisal from PKB and Bulyan Rohyan from the Star Reform Party, have all been arrested in relation to corruption scandals, with several being sentenced to prison for their roles. At a regional level, dozens of local politicians have also been arrested by the KPK, police or the Attorney General’s Office for involvement in corruption.

Media organizations have begun reporting that legislative candidates have been pouring money into their election campaigns to win over voters.

Some politicians from smaller parties attending the ceremony expressed pessimism over the agreement, saying the it was likely many politicians would not implement its promise.

Roy BB Janis from the Democratic Reform Party (PDP) said the House should pass a bill authorizing law enforcers to shift the burden of proof onto suspects when they are investigating graft cases.

“We also know that once that policy is implemented then there will be more legislators facing graft allegations. So it makes sense that no political party will ever show true commitment to fighting corruption for those reasons,” he said.

Film director-turned politician Eros Jarot, who also attended the gathering, said several political activists had already called for this bill to be passed but the House of Representatives had rejected it in 2004.

“Those who rejected the idea back then are here now signing this agreement. How will this pact make any difference in the future?”

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Hey Voter! Look! I’m The One For You ...

The Jakarta Globe
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Dalih Sembiring

The legislative elections are just around the corner, and thesigns have been obvious, literally, for the past few months. Posters, billboards, flags, stickers and pamphlets bearing images of the candidates, or caleg , and their words of wisdom catch your eye wherever you turn.

These visual campaigns line the streets, obstruct one’s view of the sky and are stuck on walls, trees and poles — where their supporters hope they will be noticed. Some manage to get the attention they seek, but not always for the reasons they hope.

One yellow banner featuring Golkar Party politician Prya Ramadhani, on a wall at the Buaran train station in East Jakarta, reads in uppercase Bahasa Indonesia what translates as: “WATCH OUT!!! BE CAREFUL OF PASSING TRAINS.”

Using a semi-cartoon design, Prya is shown in a horse-drawn cart with his daughter, television actress Nia Ramadhani, whose comic bubble says that her father needs the support of East Jakartans to become a member of the Jakarta Legislative Council.

Prya is not alone in enlisting the support of his family. Rafflyn Lamusu from the National People’s Concern Party, or PPRN, has huge banners around Gorontalo city in Gorontalo Province showing him next to a photo of his daughter in a red shoulder-strap dress.

The daughter is a well-known singer as a member of AB Three trio. And to ensure that potential voters know their relationship, Rafflyn’s posters carry the words, right under his name: “The Father of Cynthia Lamusu.”

It was only a matter of time before a Web site or Facebook group was created to catalog and discuss these political posters, and that time has come, with the Web site www.janganbikinmalu2009.com. The phrase jangan bikin malu means “don’t humiliate yourselves,” and the 2009 is for the legislative and presidential elections that will be held this year.

“It all started when I thought about who I should vote for in the upcoming legislative elections,” said Mirwan Suwarso, one of the initiators of the site. “I was truly confused.

“Most of the visual campaigns say nothing specific about the calegs’ programs. They’re merely filled with jargon and promises.”

So Mirwan, a film director, came up with a plan. To find the best candidates, he would first eliminate those whose campaign posters repel voters rather than attracting them. And why not help other voters while he was at it, he thought.

Last month, he teamed up with Amien Krisna, a friend who had been collecting photos of silly campaign advertisements, and they created the Web site, which has already received more than 10,000 hits.

“We also started a Facebook group by the same name, and it already has more than 2,500 members,” Mirwan said.

So, just how embarrassing are the banners and billboards?

Mirwan noticed that many of the campaign posters feature the candidates with photos or mentions of party leaders or family members who are distinguished, nationally or locally. These include campaign advertisements with photos of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or former Presidents Megawati Sukarnoputri and Sukarno in the background or over the candidates’ image.

“This shows that these candidates rely on the appeal of more well-known figures to win people over,” Mirwan said. “But that’s not what we want to know. We want to find out their plans of action.”

Seemingly more desperate to gain votes, or just clueless, are banners and posters that present the candidates alongside such celebrities as pop singer Dhani Ahmad, football player David Beckham and Barack Obama — most of them clearly edited using computer software, with results that are as muddled as the message they try to convey.

And for those who love cartoons, check out the banners with Po the Kung-Fu Panda or Naruto the young ninja in them — both fighting for the Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS.

There are even candidates who are willing to appear shirtless and posing as boxers, such as Rustan Taruk and Ilham Handi Hafid, both candidates for the National Mandate Party, or PAN, in Palopo city, in the Luwu district of South Sulawesi Province.

Then there is Egy Massadiah, a Golkar candidate who has his head pasted on the buff body of a yellow-and-green Superman, complete with a flapping cape that flaunts the party’s banyan tree logo.

“Honestly, I’m scared, really scared, that these candidates will actually win,” said Mirwan, who still hasn’t found his ideal candidates.

In December last year, the Constitutional Court, in its judicial review of the law regarding the general elections, decided that legislative candidates would be elected on personal votes.

In the 1999 and 2004 elections, voters simply chose a political party and their votes went to that party’s candidates in order of their ranking on the party list.

The court’s decision gave the same chance to all candidates from all 44 political parties to win their way to the House of Representatives, or DPR, local legislative councils, or DPRDs, and the Regional Representatives Council, or DPD.

“The decision has certainly had a great impact on candidates, especially on those who thought they didn’t have a chance because they had low positions on the [party] lists,” said Muhammad Faisal, a political psychology analyst with Chakra Politika Indonesia, a political consultancy.

“The sudden optimism turned into a panic effect when those candidates thought they should put up their advertisements before it’s too late to attract voters,” said Faisal, explaining why more campaign posters have sprouted up this year than during the previous two elections.

He added that the phenomenon also resulted from the candidates’ failure to figure out the demographics of voters, as well as a reluctance from the candidates to reach out to the public in person.

“With a long campaign period, our candidates could have divided their efforts to win voters over into three parts — namely introductions, which would include putting up visual advertisements, then the personal approach by going into the field to meet potential voters and finally by reminding people of who they should vote for,” the 28-year-old analyst said.

The sometimes weird and tacky campaign signs are a source of amusement for who want a laugh by viewing the pictures over e-mail, on Web sites and blogs or on the Jangan Bikin Malu Facebook group, where they can post comments as well.

A comment on Egy’s “Superman” advertisement says it looks infantile. Another asks: “Is there a worse design?”

For Rafflyn’s — and his daughter’s — banner, one comment reads, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity. This banner has made its way onto Facebook! It’s the highest achievement in terms of self- promotion, even though it has zero taste.”

But many think there are too many of these posters, banners and pamphlets in the real world, where their presence is considered an eyesore to passers-by.

“I think they’re annoying, messing up our streets and not helping in any way possible,” said Suryani Liauw, a managing director for a film production company. “They’re not helping in informing me what’s going on, who to choose or why. So, in a way, the visuals are not helping their campaigns either.”

Suryani has not had decided who she will vote for come April 9. “[I have] no clue what the options are and what they’re there for.”

Selectia Rizka, a line producer for a production house and an art director, finds the advertisements a visual irritant. “Even though their size and other aspects have been regulated, their placement and the ridiculous amount [of them] make them such an eyesore,” Selectia said.

“Each party should hand out free catalogs of the candidates, or put them in strategic places. Just like free magazines,” Selectia said, when asked what would be a more effective method of reaching potential voters.

“The whole choose-your-caleg thing is so confusing,” Suryani said.

“It doesn’t mean that the old system was good, though,” she added. “Anything that is confusing is not good.

“Just be clear on the eligibility of the candidates, and make up a comprehensible quota. ‘Comprehensible’ means we get to know each candidate. You know, like in ‘American Idol.’?”

The Jangan Bikin Malu initiative doesn’t just make fun of candidates for dull or off-the-wall banners and posters. One of its sections, Yang Penting-Penting, or The Important Issues, tries to help both voters and candidates identify which issues to prioritize.

“We have 40 volunteers — all young people — who help us with this section,” Mirwan said. “Site visitors determine which sectors need swift handling. There is a scale of one to five — one as the most trivial — next to each issue.”

“Some caleg called us, asking to be interviewed. But we suggested that they just participate in the survey.”

“We’ve started sending the results to political parties, beginning with the Jakarta districts,” he said.

Any responses from the candidates will be added to the Web site.

“So far, we have received around 500 online replies to the survey,” said Amien, the technical administrator of the site.

In another section, visitors can view videos directed by Mirwan.

Featuring Indonesian actor Tio Pakusadewo, who helped Mirwan write the skits, they pan the legislative election process from the moment parties register their names (one skit shows a fictional party named the Defending the Land and Sea of Indonesia Party, or Partai Gerakan Membela Tanah Air Indonesia, with their name shortened to Partai Gembel Tai — gembel means shabby and tai means feces) up to the corrupt behavior legislative candidates display once elected (Tio plays all the characters himself).

“We’re hoping to keep the site going until the presidential election,” Amien said.

“This initiative is not just mine,” Mirwan said. “It belongs to anyone who cares. As long as they don’t post anything that offends any ethnic groups, religions and races, or attack certain groups, they’re welcome to join.”

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Democracy Comes Of Age In Local Elections

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Friday, February 27, 2009
Bruce Gale

Title: Deepening Democracy In Indonesia: Direct Elections For Local Leaders (Pilkada) Editors: Maribeth Erb and Priyambudi Sulistiyanto Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

THIS book sets out to examine an aspect of Indonesia's transition to a truly competitive political system rarely covered by the international media - the recently completed direct election of local governors, walikota (mayors) and bupati (regents) in all 33 of the country's provinces. Known in Indonesia as pilkada, the elections were an important development in the post-Suharto era because they symbolised the
final devolution of authority from the once all-powerful central government.

Because the staggered elections were completed only very recently, it may be some time before their true implications become obvious. Even so, the authors make many important observations that are worthy of serious consideration.

The book, which consists of 16 papers by various researchers, had its origins in a workshop on Indonesia's local elections held at the National University of Singapore in May 2006.

The contributors take a generally positive view of the impact of local elections on the development of Indonesia's democracy. But they are not blind to the problems. Corruption, patrimonialism, a weak party system and ethnic/religious conflict are the four main impediments to further democratisation, say the book's
editors in an introductory essay.

The proliferation of political parties with similar ideological bases has meant that party affiliations are very tenuous. This, together with the fact that support at the local level was frequently sold to the highest bidder, led to all kinds of unlikely coalitions.

Is this a good thing? The authors of this volume do not seem sure. Such pragmatic coalition- building may augur well for Indonesia. But it also suggests that Indonesian politicians stand for little other than their own interests.

The cost of local campaigns also meant that candidates needed to have strong financial backers in order to win. This prompts some of the book's contributors to question the future quality of local governments as the winners seek to recoup their own or their backers' investments.

Most authors nevertheless find reason for optimism. Wealth, they note, did not guarantee victory. Instead, the winners tended to be those who were popular or were rooted in their districts. Incumbents who won generally did so because they had performed well in office, while those who lost often had poor records.

Indeed, one of the striking characteristics of these elections is the extent to which voters have looked to the personalities and leadership qualities of the candidates rather than the parties or coalitions they represented.

The wide acceptance of the decisions of the Mahkamah Agung (High Court) in settling electoral disputes is yet another positive sign of the growing maturity of the political system, as is the fact that the elections were overwhelmingly peaceful. Dr Marcus Meitzner's conclusion that such elections have the potential to erode secessionist demands in West Papua by allowing divisions to come to the surface warrants attention.

One aspect of the elections not discussed in the book is the way in which the staggered local election schedule, which began in 2005, has encouraged the development of professional political consultancies. These consultancies sell their services to anyone willing to pay. Yet the extent of their influence is largely
unknown.

Have local elections deepened Indonesia's democracy? The optimistic answer provided by this book is that on balance, they have.

bruceg@sph.com.sg

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