Summary

The general elections passed quietly. They were largely free and fair on the day. The main violations that occurred were by Golkar. Indonesia now enters a more perilous phase, as the opposing political forces of Megawati Soekarnoputri and President Habibie compete for the presidency.

The results of the general election are inconclusive. Despite a painfully slow official count, unofficial counts show that Megawati won a surprising personal victory -- close to 40% of the national vote. But her potential allies did badly. Golkar did well enough in Eastern Indonesia and its allies, particularly PPP, will win sufficient seats to give the Government almost the same number of seats in the new Parliament (DPR). Sectarian politics threaten to split the pre-election Megawati alliance with Gus Dur.

Megawati’s position will be further eroded in the selection of the 200 additional delegates who, with the 500 DPR members, comprise the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), which elects the president. Habibie could ultimately have an absolute majority in the MPR, without depending on the Armed Forces.

Habibie and his supporters are prepared to do whatever is necessary to win the presidency. Megawati appears less determined. Her supporters could respond with violence to the use of delegate buying and religion to undermine her clear popular lead over Habibie. Society could divide along the secular/Muslim religious fault line which cuts across Indonesian society. The next four to five months could become increasingly turbulent as the fight for the presidency intensifies.

The Election Count Morass

Twenty-four hours after the polls closed, I believed that there was something untoward in the virtual total absence of meaningful preliminary figures when systems had been established to allow an early flow of data on the result. At the end of June, only 52% of the votes have been officially tabulated. The unofficial count being run with foreign assistance has stopped with about 85% of the vote tabulated. The foreign observers have all gone home. Local observers have lost the patience to maintain vigilance.

Since 8 June, the count has been in a surreal no man’s land. Initially, the excuses for the slowness of the national tally seemed acceptable. The count was painstaking. Figures were being checked and rechecked. Then recounts began. Next came a flood of allegations of election fraud and demands to repeat the poll in various districts. Most are trivial, but their investigation is a major distraction and is delaying the tally. The KPU began to bicker not about the count, but about the appropriateness of the KPU continuing to have as its members the representatives of the forty parties which failed to get any significant support. This was another major distraction from the real task.

The final official national tally was postponed from 21 June to 8 July. As of now, it may be postponed further. Initially, the KPU decided on 28 June that it would discard the count so far, which has been based on figures aggregated at the kabupaten level. The implication was that the KPU does not trust the aggregated figures. It would rebuild the national tally from the 320,000 polling booths. Later the KPU decided to continue counting kabupaten figures but to check them with data from the booths. This debate underlines the extent to which the KPU is sadly losing its way at the same time as the official counts unravels.

On 9 June, I said that the count was a disgrace. That statement is even truer at the end of the month. There can be no confidence now that the final figures will reflect the votes cast on 7 June. The situation now is simply too confused.

In these circumstances, the national tally may never be completed. The KPU may then have to find a way to declare a ‘near correct’ result. It may use the near complete unofficial count to do this. It will be impossible to know which party or parties were disadvantaged by such a step. There will be more scope for controversy and distraction.

In the meantime, of course, the timetable for the presidential election slips. Already the KPU is saying that the election should be put back a month.

The Likely Result

Despite these uncertainties, it is possible to predict the likely composition of the DPR and the MPR.

The following table assumes that:

• Gus Dur’s PKB will support Megawati
• PAN will split, with the majority supporting the Islamic /Habibie coalition
• Golkar will not split
• the 135 regional delegates to the MPR will be selected largely in proportion to their numbers in the provincial assemblies, although Golkar may seek to elect all Golkar delegates from provinces it dominates
• another 15 Armed Forces delegates will be among those selected by the regional assemblies as regional delegates
• the 65 group delegates to the MPR will split almost equally between Megawati and Habibie:

On these figures, Megawati does not have a clear hold on the presidency and needs the Armed Forces to be elected president. Even then it would be a narrow victory. The above table, moreover, makes no allowances for manipulation of the official results of the general election, ‘dirty politics’ in the selection of the regional and group delegates, or the ‘buying’ of delegates.

Megawati’s position could worsen, to the point where Habibie has an absolute majority in the MPR and the Armed Forces vote is no longer decisive. ‘Vote buying’ will be a major danger if voting for the president and vice-president is in secret.

Habibie Ruthlessly Fights for the Presidency

The President has already begun the fight to retain the presidency. Habibie and his supporters have in place a multi-faceted strategy which seeks to divide his opponents and build a Habibie majority in the MPR. The strategy involves doing everything possible, breaking rules and conventions where necessary, to achieve success.

First, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the election count morass and the drift in the KPU are politically motivated to benefit the incumbent.

Golkar will also ignore past traditions of decision-making by consensus. In regional assemblies where it and its allies have a majority, it will try to ensure that only its supporters are elected to the MPR. If this happens, Golkar’s opponents will not get the share of the regional delegates their numbers in the regional assemblies would otherwise suggest.

Golkar will do what it can in the increasingly discredited National Election Commission (KPU) to ensure as many as possible of its supporters are chosen among the 65 group delegates.

Part of the Golkar strategy is to buy MPR delegates, whether they are DPR members or regional and group delegates.

Golkar is playing on emotive issues to minimise the popularity of and discredit Megawati. Golkar’s Muslim allies are arguing that, consistent with Muslim dogma, a woman cannot be president of a Muslim country. They are also pointing to the non-Muslims among the PDIP’s MPR delegates (ignoring the non-Muslims among the Armed Forces and Golkar members of the DPR). Muslim opponents will use the argument that she is not a genuine Muslim because she has been photographed praying in a Hindu temple in Bali (she is a quarter Balinese).

The Government has just begun a new anti-drugs and anti-pornography campaign. It will reassure the conservative Muslim community that the Government is tough on these manifestations of excessive liberalism. It also leaves open the impression that the ‘non-Muslim’ PDIP is ready to open the floodgates.

Sensing that he has the numbers in the MPR, figures close to Habibie are already saying that the idea of a single consensus candidate for president other than Habibie or Megawati is Soeharto New Order nonsense. They are saying that Indonesians must get used to voting on the presidency. Only one candidate will win.

In this context Golkar is saying that it accepts that Megawati has won the general election. According to the 1945 Constitution, however, the election of the president is a quite different process to the general election. The process is mandated in the 1945 Constitution. The losers in the presidential election will also have to accept that they have lost.

Golkar will also use the communist bogey to denigrate and terrorise PDIP voters. The argument is beginning to be heard that the PDIP has done so well in Java and Bali because it has the support of the children and grandchildren of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) supporters of the 1950s and 1960s. They are said to want to take revenge on the New Order because of what happened to their parents and grandparents.

Any PDIP mass action on the streets in support of Megawati will be quickly labelled typical PKI tactics from the past. It will also be labelled an attempt to thwart the legitimate processes of the 1945 Constitution, which Megawati herself does not want changed.

Megawati’s Strategy

Megawati’s response to this evolving strategy is to do nothing. Her lack of action is consistent with her approach in the past. She may fear that her supporters will take rash action if she publicly responds to her Muslim critics or criticises the growing problems with the poll. She has avoided any action which could incite bloodshed in the past. She has an added reason this time in the likely accusation that, if PDIP supporters take to the streets, the PDIP is really the PKI.

Megawati may already know that the Armed Forces will support her, in which case she has only wait until the presidential vote for that fact to emerge. A possible candidate for Vice-President is retired Lieutenant-General Moetojib, former head of State Intelligence. He met her on 30 June. If the Government’s tactics in the meantime ‘gather’ the 15 delegates necessary to give it a majority, the Armed Forces no longer are decisive in the presidential vote and lose the bargaining power they assume they have at the moment.

Megawati may be right. The presidential election is at least five months off, and much can happen. Already, for example, the PPP opposition to a woman president has been rejected by a substantial number of Muslim religious leaders. By the time of the election, it may be irrelevant.

By the time of the election, there could be a substantial groundswell of feeling that she has overwhelming popular support and should be the president. This is the position adopted by the respected Muslim scholar, Nurcholish Madjid. This view could gain ground. As her Vice-President, Nurcholish would add substantial Muslim modernist credentials to her presidency.

Or there could be a groundswell for a government of national unity, encompassing the main four or five political parties and supported by the Armed Forces. At this stage, however, Habibie has the initiative and looks strongest.

External Perceptions

Since the general election, the rupiah has strengthened sharply and the Jakarta Stock Exchange has risen. Some of the funds are connected to the return of business people who have been overseas during the campaign. Money is also entering in the possibly erroneous belief is that Megawati’s election to the presidency is a formality and business can look forward to political stability. This judgement is premature.

The original plan was for the presidential election to take place on 10 November 1999. This no longer seems possible given the delays in the count. A more likely date is just before the fasting month begins on 9 December. If President Habibie is re-elected, the likely backlash may be some time in coming because demonstrations are less likely in the holy fasting month. The holiday season of Lebaran follows in early January.

Any substantial backlash against Habibie’s re-election may therefore take some time to develop, just as it took time for the anti-Soeharto movement to gain momentum after his re-election in early March 1998. Many of Megawati’s supporters in Java and Bali are unlikely to quietly accept her defeat in the race for the presidency. Already there are accounts of PDIP supporters signing pledges of support with bloody thumbprints from pricked thumbs.

If, however, she urges calm and quietly accepts defeat, the backlash could be substantially less. Her supporters rallied to her in 1996 before and after her removal as Chairman of the PDI. They signed pledges in blood then too. But the movement petered out in the face of stiff Government controls and her own inaction.

At the same time as the political dueling over the presidency intensifies, the United Nations is preparing a “popular consultation” or referendum on independence for East Timor. Already the UN has postponed the referendum two weeks because of security concerns. The violence is continuing, including against the UN itself and further delay is likely. Other Governments are blaming the Armed Forces for instigating and arming pro-Indonesia elements, who are principally responsible for the violence and poor security.

Indonesia could therefore be the scene over the next six to nine months of a worsening security situation and worsening relations with key Western donors on several counts. First, foreign Governments will blame Indonesia for any failure of the referendum in East Timor. Failure to finish the general election process with a credible count will also worry donors, who spent substantial amounts to make the process free and fair. And renewed violence surrounding the re-election of Soeharto’s favourite will increase disillusionment even further.

‘More of the same’ will make it difficult for Governments and multilateral agencies to sustain enthusiasm and maintain support for Indonesia at the substantial levels still needed to reform an ailing modern economy and fatally corrupt business and Government structures. As the prospects of a change of leadership diminish, foreign concerns will rise.

2 July 1999