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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS