The secular party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has scored a victory in Indonesia’s parliamentary elections, but will likely be forced to govern with several Islamic parties after a political feud with his main coalition partner.
The final tallies, released late on Saturday, give the reform-minded leader a boost before he runs for re-election in July. His Democratic Party garnered 20.8 percent of the popular vote in the April 9 election, tripling its showing from 2004.
Yudhoyono’s party now has 148 seats in the 560-seat parliament and without a majority, he will have to team up with other parties to push through much-needed economic and institutional reforms.
But a decision by Golkar Chairman and Vice President Jusuf Kalla to run for president has caused a rift between the former coalition partners. Yudhoyono is now expected to form an alliance with four Islamic parties — even though they did poorly in the polls. Their support fell from 39 percent in 2004 to 24 percent last month.
“Such a partnership would make sense,” said Arbi Sanit, an analyst from the University of Indonesia, noting that Yudhoyono and the Islamists both share anti-graft platforms and champion the poor.
“It’s an alliance that could both strengthen his hand in parliament and convince people on his ‘clean government’ commitment,” Sanit said.
Islamists saw their support plummet last month partly because they’ve been seen as intolerant after pushing though unpopular laws banning everything from smoking to yoga and imposing Shariah-based laws in some regions.
The results from last month’s poll were widely expected and mirrored unofficial, early tallies.
Golkar, the former political machine of longtime dictator Suharto, got 14.45 percent; the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle headed by former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, who is also expected to join the presidential race, 14 percent; and the Islamic-based Prosperous and Justice Party, 7.8.
Yudhoyono is widely expected to win a second, five-year term when voters go to the polls on July 8.
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