Portrayed as a shoo-in for re-election just months ago, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri was fighting for her political life yesterday, scrambling to form a coalition following her party's poor showing in this week's parliamentary elections.
The president's aides were fast at work sounding out potential running mates and coalition partners who could salvage her candidacy ahead of the July 5 presidential elections.
Meanwhile, international observers praised the conduct of Monday's poll, although some minor parties complained of voting fraud.
About 124 million votes were cast and with about a third counted, Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDIP, had 20.76 percent. The Golkar Party, once headed by former dictator Suharto, lagged just behind at 20.03 percent.
The moderate, religious-based National Awakening Party of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, had 13.7 percent of the vote total so far.
These percentages are expected to largely hold up when final tallies are announced in several days. A nationwide vote sampling by the Washington-based National Democratic Institute -- the international arm of the US Democratic Party -- projected Golkar finishing ahead with 22.7 percent and Megawati's party with 18.8 percent.
Either way, PDIP has lost about a third of the support it received in 1999.
"Megawati is finished," said Jeffrey Winters, an Indonesia expert at Northwestern University in Chicago. Her party lost support and "that is a referendum on Megawati, not a referendum on PDIP."
"Between now and July 5, she will have to respond repeatedly to the question: `Why did we lose?' I believe there will be a massive trauma within the party."
Party officials vowed to stand behind Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia's founding father, Sukarno, and thus one of the most recognizable political figures. But some of them say she'll have to break her silence over the country's rampant corruption to win back voters, many of whom migrated to the Democratic Party of her former security chief Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"The most pressing problem in Indonesia is corruption," said Kwik Kian Gie, a key PDIP leader and Cabinet minister. "Megawati must convince voters that, although she did little about fighting corruption in the past four years, she will fight it in the future if she is re-elected."
Megawati came into office in July 2001 promising to be a force for democratic change. Instead, her detractors say she is an aloof leader who cozied up to corrupt politicians and an abuse-tainted military.
Indonesians voted Monday for a 550-seat lower house, a 128-seat upper house, and local and provincial councils. It was the second free election since Suharto's fall in 1998.
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