http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bee24d48-6984-11de-bc9f-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Indonesian candidates must mind the gap By John Aglionby in Bandung Published: July 5 2009 19:00 | Last updated: July 5 2009 19:00 When the local chapter of Indonesia's ruling Democrat party wanted to mobilise support for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's presidential re-election campaign, officials planned to provide often costly ritual circumcisions and free medical care to the poor for a day. "Everything was ready - the stage, the musicians, the doctors and the medicine," says Adjeng Ratna Suminak, a party leader in West Java. "But then the election authorities said what we planned to do was 'money politics' because we were giving help directly to the people and so against the rules. The event had to be cancelled." During the run-up to Wednesday's vote in the world's third largest democracy, there have been numerous such examples of political parties showing ignorance of the rules or choosing to campaign through paternalistic good deeds rather than promoting the candidates' policies. Mr Yudhoyono's two challengers are his predecessor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the current vice-president, Jusuf Kalla. A growing body of younger politicians and analysts believes the presidential campaign, partly through such incidents, has exposed the limitations of Indonesia's oligarchic political system. They say there is a growing disconnection between the Jakarta-focused political elite, who are not willing to nurture grassroots activism or engage voters directly, and the public, who are becoming increasingly demanding of their politicians and are no longer willing to be dictated to. This gap played a big role in the legislative election three months ago and could have a similarly large impact on Wednesday. This is best encapsulated by the fortunes of Mr Yudhoyono's Democrat party. In April's legislative election, it almost tripled its share of the vote from the 2004 poll to 20.6 per cent. This was, however, thanks to Mr Yudhoyono's 70 per cent approval rating rather than the party's own performance. Half the party's incumbent legislators lost their seats despite the surge in the Democrat's overall support. Voters said they refused to re-elect people they considered inadequate and out of touch. Overall about two-thirds of the new parliament will be fresh faces. The consequence for Indonesia, the politicians and analysts say, is that unless the parties radically reform, this high level of turnover in parliament is likely to continue, stymieing political development, which in turn is likely to delay economic and social progress. Gray Koes Moertiyah, a newly elected Democrat legislator from Central Java, acknowledges the party's future is "very tentative". "We're well aware of the need to build our own identity, one that is distinct from SBY," she says, using the president's initials. "If we don't, we won't survive beyond 2014." Mr Yudhoyono is widely expected to be voted back in for a final term, expiring in 2014. Building a new identity for the party would require "a massive mindset change by the party leadership", Ms Moertiyah says. "The new members have to be made aware of their duties and responsibilities. They've got to regularly go back to the regions and get input from the people." The spotlight is increasingly turning to Mr Yudhoyono's succession planning. Analysts are divided as to whether he can build a modern political party that can survive his retirement and prod other parties to reform. The alternative is that he could seek to perpetuate the oligarchy by creating his own political dynasty. Mr Yudhoyono did little to build up the Democrat party in his first term and there is increasing talk in political circles about his family's political ambitions. His younger son, Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, 28, won more votes than any other candidate in April's election to win a parliamentary seat in his father's home district in East Java. His wife, Kristiani, and her brother, special forces commander Major General Pramono Edhi Wibowo, are thought to be eyeing political careers. Similar succession struggles are likely to affect the other big parties, assuming Mr Yudhoyono wins the presidency. Golkar is expected to dump Mr Kalla as its chief and the future of Mrs Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) is equally uncertain. Arie Sujito of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, says the lack of natural successors to the current political elite means there is plenty to play for in the next five years whoever becomes president. "The Democrat party doesn't have the foundations, the institutions or the cadres [to succeed] while PDIP and Golkar haven't built an alternative vision at the grassroots," he says. "There is every incentive for all the parties to make a major effort to modernise. The question is whether they will be visionary enough to do so." Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
