For the first time in its relatively young history Indonesians have to perform the daunting task of actually electing their president. This might sound strange but until now Indonesians never really had to choose their leader for the simple reason that there had never been more than one candidate to choose from.

The first Indonesian president Soekarno was Indonesia’s founding father, who proclaimed the archipelago’s independence from the colonizers. The second president, Soeharto, took over on an alleged mandate from Soekarno supposedly for having freed the country from the grip of communism. For the next three decades Soeharto managed to hang on to his position by creating a rubber stamp parliament whose task was to put the seal of approval on his sole candidacy. No doubt Soeharto would have led the nation for the rest of his life if he were not rudely forced to step down and Indonesia’s fourth president, Habibie, came to power by default because he happened to be vice-president. Again he was not the people’s choice but inherited from the past regime.

Now that the country is on the path of democratization, electing a president is a lot more complicated than it sounds not only because the new members of parliament are not experienced in the process yet, but also because the election and parliamentary system themselves are not yet equipped to handle a democratic election. So that unlike in other countries where the outcome of an election can more or less be predicted, here in Indonesia the element of surprise is its essence. For instance, on this eve of the presidential election, still no one in the country could name with confidence the person who will lead this country into the next millenium.

Logic would say that the leader of the party that had won in Indonesia’s first truly democratic election held last June, would get the chance to become the president. After all what the voters had in mind when they cast their vote was the leader of the party they were voting for. In which case it should be the leader of the Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) Megawati Soekarnoputri, whose party garnered 230 seats of the 462 seats in the House of Representatives. Their rival, Golkar, the party that touts the incumbent president Habibie for its presidential candidate, got 120 seats while the rest of the seats were won by a motley of Moslem-based parties.

The House of Representatives however, does not have the power to elect the president. This prerogative belongs to the highest body of the land, the People’s Consultative Assembly known as the MPR which consists of the 462 House members plus unelected members representing the Armed/Police Forces and special interest groups, making a total of 700 members. This is where the role of popular and democratic vote ends and the game of backroom politics, money politics and horse-trading by the political elite begins. And this is where the element of surprise lies.

In order to garner more than half the total votes needed to get their leader elected, both the Golkar and the PDIP parties would have to gain support from other factions in the Assembly such as the Armed Forces, the special interest groups and the handful of lesser parties represented in the Assembly. So how do the two leaders of the top two parties, namely Megawati and Habibie, rate in the presidential race? Both have their weak points. Megawati might find it difficult to get the support of the staunchly Moslem groups represented in the Assembly because of her gender. This might make her PDIP party seek the support from the Armed/Police Force group, which might involve a compromise that would be against her reformist image as the Armed Forces have become increasingly unpopular in the country.

Meanwhile Golkar’s presidential candidate, the incumbent President Habibie is proving a liability than an asset to the party particularly following the East Timor debacle and the still unsolved Bank Bali scandal dubbed Baligate that smacks of money politicking by his men ­ issues that would cost Habibie the crucial support of the Armed Forces group as well as the reformist groups in the Assembly.

To complicate matters is the presence of the ‘axis force’ in the assembly consisting of the coalition of the small but influential reformist group the National Mandate Party (PAN) and a handful of small Moslem parties that is offering its own presidential candidate ­ the mercurial blind cleric and spiritual leader Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur, who himself has been a keen supporter of Megawati but now doesn’t seem to mind being nominated as a presidential candidate. If he joins the race he might just steal the presidential seat from Megawati as the majority of the factions other than the PDIP faction would likely give him their support. Although Gus Dur is a popular man and a natural leader, his ascendancy would only be due to the political maneuverings by the political elite and would not reflect the result of the election conducted by the people last June and which would certainly disappoint Megawati’s supporters who made up the majority of the voters.

However, bearing in mind all kinds of surprises that color Indonesia’s politics these days while being wildly optimistic that reform and democratization is a commitment that all the new members of Parliament are trying hard to stick to, perhaps the ideal combination is one that is also the most unlikely. That is the coalition between the PDIP party and the Golkar party. Of course it would involve Golkar ditching its presidential candidate Habibie, for its party leader Akbar Tanjung. In which case Megawati would be the president and Akbar Tanjung the vice-president. Not only in terms of numbers in the Assembly this duet would command the majority of the votes, but it would also reflect the result of the election held by the Indonesian people. And that would certainly be a solid start for a more democratic Indonesia.

Jakarta, October 5, 1999