Keeping it up

Still a long way to go until the election, and some of the parties are taking advantage of the holiday season to wish potential voters a Happy Idul Fitri while trying to keep their parties in the public eye.

Gerindra, the vehicle of disgraced former commander of Indonesia's special forces Prabowo, has recruited the "Three Divas", a sort of Indonesia megagroup including top singer Kris Dayanti, to pass on the holiday wishes. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took out an ad in the best-selling daily paper Kompas the other week for his Democratic Party vehicle. However this was more annoying than anything else as it was in the form of a flap on the front page, obscuring the weather report and making it impossible to hold the paper with only two hands...

Then a blast from the past. Akbar Tandjung (who is of course entirely innocent of the embezzlement he was once charged with as Indonesia's famously independent Supreme Court granted the appeal of this former head of the former ruling party) can now been seen standing stiffly in front of his family squeezing greetings out of a wooden smile. So presumably he wants the presidency as well...

Meanwhile, after the flurry of flags a few weeks ago, some of the banners are looking decidedly tattered. There have been a few token holiday banners, but most parties don't seem to have thought how they are going to keep up public interest until April and beyond, and seem to have given up for the time being.