Indonesia’s three main political parties appear to still have everything to play for following Wednesday’s legislative election, but frontrunner the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle is expected to lead the charge when candidates for July's presidential election are announced.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, opposition and favorite the PDI-P anticipated around 27 percent, but come evening it became clear that it had tailed off at just below 20 -- in front, but not enough to present a presidential candidate, leaving it scrambling to form a coalition.
As voters drifted off into the night wondering what had gone wrong in the world's most populous Muslim country and third-largest democracy, pundits pointed to the party’s failure to exploit the phenomenon that is the Jokowi effect -- the electability of its presidential candidate and "Crown Prince” Joko Widodo, whose popularity has been riding high ever since he first won the governorship of the capital city of Jakarta.
Ari Junaedi of the University of Indonesia told ANTARA News this week that the PDI-P should have focused more on the presidential candidate instead of the party chairwoman.
The candidate is Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, a one time little-known furniture retailer, whose stock began to rise in 2005 when he became mayor of the central Javanese city of Solo. He was reelected with a landslide victory in 2010, only to resign in 2012 to run for mayor in Jakarta. He emerged victorious, has since gained a reputation for incorruptibility, and has recently ranked third in the annual World Mayor Prize.
The chairwoman is Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of the leader of the Indonesian independence movement and the country's first president, Sukarno.
Just like in the film industry, more emphasis should have placed on the main actor rather than the director, Junaedi told the country's national news agency.
Jokowi’s popularity -- like Sukarno’s -- lies in his ability to walk among the masses. He likes to arrive unannounced in different parts of the capital and talk with local people about issues affecting them. The visits are known locally as blusukans, or "unscheduled visits."
PDI-P’s origins lie in the 1973 founding of the Indonesian National Party (PNI) through the merger of four non-Islamic political parties -- the Catholic Party, the Independence Vanguard Party, the Indonesian Christian Party, and the Murba Party. During the last 30 years of the 20th century, PNI was one of just two opposition parties officially recognized by the government, President Suharto -- fearing that the Muslim-based United Development Party might pose a threat to his rule -- frequently intervening to strengthen PNI’s support as he needed a pseudo-democratic election to justify his rule.
In 1998, Suharto’s regime crumbled during an economic crisis. Indonesia allowed new political parties to be established and to participate in a general election, the PNI splitting with Megawati -- the chair of its anti-government faction -- leading the new party, the PDI-P.
In 1999, the PDI-P became the largest in the legislature with 33.74 percent of the vote but the win was not enough to propel Megawati to the presidency as other parties established a coalition.
Two years later, the then president was unseated in a graft scandal, Megawati becoming president. Her reign was not to last, however, Indonesians quickly unhappy that she had failed to deliver change. They voted in the Democratic Party’s Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the 2004 election, the PDI-P supplanted from its role as the largest party in the legislature by Golkar -- the political vehicle of late President Suharto, who governed the country until 1998 under a brutal military dictatorship and impeached Megawati’s father in 1967.
Megawati stood again in 2009, but Yudhoyono was triumphant once more, Megawati’s husband eventually trying to establish a coalition with the hope of getting PDI-P members into the Cabinet. Megawati disagreed, asking members not to get involved in what she termed "imagery politics."
"Let’s not be proud when we form a coalition with the powerful, but let us be proud when we cry and laugh together with the people," she is reported to have told party members in 2010.
With Yudhoyono now reaching the end of his second term in office -- under the Indonesian Constitution, presidents are limited to two terms -- and support for his ruling Democrat Party at an all-time low, the PDI-P believes its moment is near.
The PDI-P’s main contenders -- predominantly secular and nationalist -- trailed not far behind according to exit polls Wednesday. Golkar won around 12 percent -- utilizing Suharto’s image on campaign literature everywhere, while Gerindra, headed by Prabowo Subianto -- a one-time special-forces commander -- took 11.5 percent. Meanwhile, the Democrat Party, having won 21 percent of the vote at the 2009 election, finished fourth with just 9 percent after several high-profile corruption cases.
Of surprise, was the performance of some of the country’s smaller Islamic parties who the PDI-P may now turn to for coalition. The 560-seat parliament, however, is now more splintered than ever before, which could severely complicate any government trying to modernize the county’s combative, messy, and highly decentralized democracy, along with its rampant corruption, and poor infrastructure. A divided legislature is good for democracy, but not for the president’s governing capacity.
According to Indonesian media, the PDI-P has already approached several other parties about forming a coalition and Jokowi is already considering who to name as his running partner -- not just an important choice for the PDI-P but also in widening its appeal to those who remain loyal to their respective parties.
As a bargaining tool, Jokowi is rumored to be considering Hatta Rajasa from the moderate Islamic party National Mandate Party as his vice presidential running mate, or television tycoon and leader of the recently formed National Democratic Party, Surya Paloh.
Jokowi told media from his Governor of Jakarta residence late Friday that he will announce the names of the five candidates in the next week, but he was reluctant to mention the criteria.
He added that the candidates had been discussed with Megawati earlier in the day.
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