Indonesians have work cut out for them at the polls

With a dizzying choice among 38 political parties, millions of Indonesians were expected at the polls today in an election capping a decade of democracy in a sprawling country with the world’s largest Muslim population.

As polls opened, voters fumbled with ballots nine pages long in cramped polling booths, searching for their preferred candidates for the 560-member national House of Representatives, provincial assemblies and other bodies.

The election, the third since former dictator Suharto’s 32-year rule ended in 1998 when he was toppled by violent street protests as the economy collapsed, marks “the end of transition,” said analyst and author Julia Suryakusuma.

“The panorama is changing. Voting behavior is changing,” she said. “The primordial type of politics is no longer there.”

A group of leading Muslim moderates recently warned that foreign-funded Islamic extremists are infiltrating key institutions here. But Islamic parties are not expected to do well in the election because so many are competing that they will split the vote, Suryakusuma said.

Across a vast archipelago of 17,500 islands, from the troubled territory of Aceh in the west to the jungles of Papua in the east, where guerrillas prowl, more than 170 million Indonesians are eligible to vote. Opinion polls suggest that many are confused by the myriad choices, which could lead to a low voter turnout.

Polls also indicate that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party is likely to win the most seats in the House of Representatives but fall short of an outright majority.

A second election, for president, is set for July. Yudhoyono’s chief rival, former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, took an early lead in opinion polls, but it quickly eroded as the election campaign picked up pace. Yudhoyono is favored to win reelection to a second five-year term.

Wimar Witoelar, a popular television host and commentator, said he didn’t expect today’s vote to change the political landscape significantly “because there is no real ideological issue and the parties have no explicit platforms; it is all about power sharing.”

Although the global financial meltdown has reduced demand for some exports from Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, the country has fared relatively well. Its economy is expected to grow as much as 4.6% in the first quarter, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said this week.

There are 11,000 candidates running for seats in the House of Representatives and a whopping 1.5 million contesting the elections at the district and municipal level. Their massive spending on T-shirts and posters, and for rallies and other activities to woo voters, has been a significant boost to consumption, Indrawati said.

Reductions in fuel prices and increases in government workers’ salaries have also helped spur growth, he said.

Voters’ main concerns are “about public accountability, political reform and economic improvement,” Witoelar said. “But they are not defined, and the responses are not rigorous. The government is doing a fair job, and the country has not yet been as hard hit as the advanced economies.”

Retired civil servant Nurjamil, 74, who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name, said he plans to vote for Yudhoyono in July, but didn’t cast his ballot today for any candidates in the president’s party.

“I choose a party for its track record,” he said, “one whose candidates stay out of trouble and are not only active during election season.”

Yudhoyono, a former army general, is given widespread credit for taking steps against government corruption while steering the economy through troubled waters. But experts say corruption remains a significant problem and that reforms must continue if Indonesia is to develop into a more fair and stable society.

The country was rated Asia’s most corrupt economy this week in a survey of international executives that is conducted each year by the Hong Kong-based firm Political and Economic Risk Consultancy.

The president’s son Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, who is running for a seat in the House of Representatives, is being investigated on allegations of vote buying, election officials said Sunday as campaigning came to a close.

The president’s spokesman denied the allegation that one of the younger Yudhoyono’s party workers had been seen handing out rupiah bank notes, worth about 87 cents each, to potential voters, insisting that the claim was part of an extortion plot.

“The one big issue is still corruption,” Suryakusuma said.

“People won’t vote for anybody if they find any hint of corruption. The people are savvy now.”

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paul.watson@latimes.com

Dinda Jouhana in The Times’ Jakarta Bureau contributed to this report.