In the last year or so, mention of Indonesia in Australia generally arouses images of hardline Muslims involved in regional terrorism. It may be interesting to take another look, especially as Indonesia is making further inroads toward democracy this year, with a parliamentary election and a presidential election.
Until 1999, elections in Indonesia had been a big yawn, because of their glaring predictability. After 32 years of Suharto’s iron rule, Indonesia’s first democratic election in 1999 was marked by euphoria, optimism and promise of massive reform.
Five years on, and much disappointment later, Indonesia faces an even tougher test. Not only were the results of the April parliamentary election full of surprises, the first direct presidential election to be conducted on 5 July, promises unprecedented suspense.
Many observers were caught by surprise with the results of the parliamentary election. While they had expected a reduction of support for incumbent president Megawati Sukarnoputri’s party, PDIP, very few had predicted the extent to which people abandoned it. The votes the party received plummeted to 18.5 per cent, from 34 per cent in the 1999 election, the largest number of votes won by any individual party at that time.
Voters expressed their disappointment in the current government, who they believe failed to deliver promised reform, and had brought the country’s economy into disarray.
It was expected that in spite of rowdy protests and demonstrations against the government, that voters would ultimately support it, the rationale being the clichéd, ‘better the devil you know’.
It is possible that the successive and easy victories of Suharto and his Golkar Party during 32 years, in retrospect, may not be entirely attributed to the government’s bullying tactics. There must have been a degree of acquiescence, if not inertia, on the part of the majority of the people.
The chances for success for new parties therefore, are usually abysmal, unless they have ready-made support, such as Amien Rais’ PAN in 1999, which drew much strength from Muhammadiyah, the second biggest Muslim organisation in the country.
For this reason the emergence in the April 2004 election of two new parties with little previous record and no apparent existing support base, is phenomenal.
The Democratic Party, co-founded by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, former Minister for Security and Defence, won 7.5 per cent, and the Prosperous Justice Party, a party evolved from a basically small fundamentalist Muslim party, Justice Party, 7.3 per cent.
The Democratic Party