Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono began planning his re-election campaign yesterday after his party won the most seats in general elections, unofficial results showed.
His centrist Democratic Party completed its dramatic transformation from political newcomer in 2001 to the strongest party in parliament following largely peaceful elections on Thursday, independent polling agencies said.
Projections by the respected Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) had the Democrats winning 20.48 percent of the vote, based on its own count of ballots from a representative sample of 2,100 polling stations.
PHOTO: AFP
The opposition Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) of ex-president Megawati Sukarnoputri gained 14.33 percent and Suharto’s former ruling party, Golkar, was close behind with 13.95 percent.
Several other independent polling agencies came up with similar projections, which were also in line with pre-election opinion surveys.
The first official results started to be published yesterday but they were too small to be meaningful and the final count is not expected until May 9.
“At this stage the data is stable. The Democrats are the winning party with the most number of votes,” LSI director Saiful Mujani told Metro TV television station late on Thursday.
Islamic parties in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country were projected to win a total of around 26 percent of the vote, their worst showing in Indonesia’s history as people focused on worldly affairs such as growth and jobs amid the global economic crisis.
MILD MANNER
Yudhoyono is a softly-spoken ex-general with a sky-high popularity rating thanks to his mild manner, sound economic management and determination to crack down on rampant corruption.
“We will start tomorrow engaging in political communications [with other parties],” Yudhoyono told reporters at his home late on Thursday.
Carefully avoiding any claim to victory, he added: “We will see what kind of coalition we have and how many presidential candidates meet the requirements.”
Golkar General-Secretary Sumarsono said: “We’re disappointed but that’s the voters’ decision and we’ll accept the results.”
“The Democrats used the president as their figurehead. If people think the president is good they’ll choose his party,” Sumarsono said.
PDI-P central board committee chairman Arif Budimanta complained that some voters’ names had been left off ballot papers, amid shambolic preparations by electoral authorities which could leave the door open to complaints.
“People said they went to polling stations wanting to vote but they were turned away as their names weren’t there,” Budimanta said.
It was the third general election since the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998 ushered in a new era of reform, turning Indonesia into the world’s third-largest democracy after India and the US.
Yudhoyono’s campaign received a boost late last year when a timely fall in crude oil prices allowed him to reverse unpopular increases in the cost of subsidized fuel.
His party may not reach the 20 percent of seats in the 560-seat lower house or 25 percent of the popular vote required to nominate a presidential candidate on its own.
But it could nevertheless improve its strength from the 57 seats it held in the outgoing parliament and is in a strong position for coalition negotiations that will set the scene for the presidential election in July.
UNEASY
Yudhoyono had an uneasy relationship with his vice-president, Golkar Chairman Jusuf Kalla, who has hinted he will run against the incumbent in the presidential race.
Other candidates include Megawati, who was defeated by Yudhoyono in 2004, the hereditary sultan of the ancient city of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono X, and Prabowo Subianto, a populist ex-general with a record of human rights abuses during the Suharto dictatorship.
Islamic parties could also become significant players if the major secular parties cannot agree to work together.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in