Indonesians set to head to polls

Around 170 million voters will cast their ballots in third democratic election.

indonesia elections president susilo bambang yudhoyono
Most opinion polls have put Yudhoyono's Democratic Party as the favourite to win the polls [Reuters]
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Indonesians disillusioned with democracy

The three week campaign period leading up to Thursday’s vote has been billed as a celebration of the Indonesia’s young democracy, with towns and cities decked in colourful flags of the 38 competing parties.

Consolidating democracy

But the vote is also expected to usher in a downsizing of the Indonesian political scene, with many of the smaller parties likely to fail to win the 2.5 per cent vote threshold to secure a place in parliament.

“This election is important for consolidating democratisation and providing reformers with a stronger mandate for pursuing institutional reforms, primarily in the civil service and the judiciary,” Kevin O’Rourke, a Jakarta-based political risk analyst, told Reuters news agency.

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About 500,000 polling stations will be open across the archipelago [Reuters]

Ahead of the vote most opinion polls have put the Democratic Party, led by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the incumbent president, in a comfortable lead.

The party founded in 2001 is several points of more established rivals such as Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), led by former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Golkar, the one-time political vehicle for the Suharto presidency.

One survey published on Sunday by the Indonesian Survey Institute gave the Democrats 26.6 per cent, compared with 14.5 per cent for the PDI-P and 13.7 for Golkar.

If those polls prove correct, the vote will be a major victory for Yudhoyono and put him well on course for re-election as head of state in July.

However, that could be challenged if Golkar and the PDI-P decide to work together in a coalition.

The election itself is a mammoth logistical exercise involving about half a million polling stations spread across an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands and three time zones.

The ballot papers themselves are the size of a foldout map or roughly the width of a polling booth.

Voter education

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Critics say the campaign has been big on noise and colour but short on substance [AFP]

In the run-up to the vote, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been running a multi-million dollar voter education campaign, using TV and radio commercials, public debates and even puppet shows to encourage people to vote.

Hakan Bjorkman, the UNDP’s Indonesia country director, said the get out the vote drive was aimed at reaching out to all Indonesians, including “marginalised individuals” such as sex workers, the elderly and the disabled who are often overlooked in the campaign.

The vote is taking place at a critical time for Indonesia, with unemployment and poverty on the rise as a result of the impact of the global economic crisis.

The election campaign has, however, been criticised by some analysts for often empty sloganeering by candidates promoting their own personalities, lack of serious policy debate and widespread vote buying.

Election rallies held across the country have been colourful lively events, with music and freebies handed out to supporters, but have seen little doled out in the way of political substance.

Surveys published just days before the vote showed as many as a quarter of voters remained undecided, with many saying they could spoil their ballot papers.

Even one of the president’s sons is under investigation for vote buying, accused of handing out 10,000 rupiah banknotes (88 cents) to people at a recent Democratic Party rally.

“It wasn’t him but his supporters doing it without his knowledge,” one party official was quoted as saying.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies