That Other Election

Indonesia has temporarily forgotten all about its own election to focus all its attention on events the other side of the world, presumably to the puzzlement of people who think their own problems are more worthy of attention than those of the USA.

If you thought the global coverage of Obama's victory was hysterical ("On every level America will be changed by this result - its impact will be so profound that the nation will never be the same."said the BBC. Hmm. Including the geology? And of course it won't - nowhere ever is! It's called entropy), come to Indonesia. As the young Obama spent time in Jakarta - his mother remarried an Indonesian and moved here - the Indonesian media rapidly abandoned all pretense of impartiality and devoted pages and pages (and hours and hours) to their adopted son. As a result, the opinion on news portal detik.com (which they shrewdly started charging people to vote on!) saw McCain's rating at around 7% right until polling day. The fact that Obama's father was Muslim sealed it for many.

And this really shows the lack of political maturity among many here. In the same way that Megawati Sukarnoputri is wildly popular because she is the daughter of Indonesia's founding president, Obama is popular because he once lived in Jakarta and had a Muslim father. Never mind the issues.... For example his stance on abortion is at odds with the majority opinion here.

And more to the point, what are the odds that an ethnic Chinese Indonesian, or a non-Muslim Indonesian, will ever become president? And will losing candidates ever learn to accept defeat graciously? Not if the last election is anything to go by. Losing candidate Megawati went into a sulk, and refused to concede defeat, saying that she had not lost, merely experienced a drop in her vote.

Anyway, congratulations to Barack Obama, and commiserations to John McCain. You can both teach Indonesia a lot about winning and losing.