All Stop. Full Steam Ahead

For some reason the counting of the legislative election results seems to have stopped completely. At least that's according the the General Election Commission (KPU) website, where the total cotes counted has been stuck at 14,484,189 for 24 hours. Have they given up trying to meet the deadline, or are they just not telling anyone what they're up to? On top of all the cockups by the KPU (chaos over the electoral roll, eligible voters not listed and therefore disenfranchised, the campaign schedule having to be changed after the campaign was already underway, ballot papers sent to the wrong provinces), this latest oddity is hardly likely to inspire confidence.

Meanwhile former president Megawati Sukarnoputri and her two new friends, the Hanura Party's former general (and indicted war criminal) Wiranto and former general (and human rights abuser) Prabowo are toying with the idea of boycotting the presidential election - not because they don't think they can won - perish the though! No, it's dur to the widepsread "fraud" in the election. Prabowo even went so far as to claim that instead of his apparent measly 5% of the vote, the fact that so many of his supporters were disenfranchised means that he actually shoul have 10%. OK, but in that case, unless the KPU is far cleverer than it looks, all parties would have suffered equally, so their vote percentages should be doubles as well. That should lead to a turnout of well over 100% - rather like the elections Indonesia's New Order used to run (with the support of people like Wiranto and Prabowo).

And poor old Jusuf Kalla still doesn't know what to do. President SBY doesn't want him, and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) even threatened to have nothing to do with his Democratic Party if he runs with JK. So Kalla is frantically looking for enough politcal dregs to scrape together to get enough votes to nominate himself. Him and Megawati running against each other should see SBY safely back to the Palace. This is assuming the boycott doesn't happen - and it does seem unlikely that the parties will all put self-interest last and support it. If the boycott did work, it would mean the presidential election would be delayed until the president issued a decree in lieu of law to change the preconditions for nomination, and a long delay could see Indonesia without a president until it's all sorted out.

Assuming Mega is too stubborn to stand down and she and Kalla each find somebody seen as suitable to run with, the presidential election may go to a run off, presenting the KPU with two more chances to make a dog's dinner of things. Time, or perhaps money, will tell.

Jakarta, we have a problem

As of 11pm today, a week after election day, the General Elections Commission (KPU) has counted eleven million votes from 57,792 polling stations. While this may sound like a splendid effort, these figures are worrying. The problem is that there are 171,265,442 Indonesians who have the right to vote and on election day there were a total of 519,920 polling stations, each with one ballot box (Kompas, 11/4/09 page 2). Each polling station caters for a maximum of 500 voters, as laid down in Article 150 of Indonesia's Law No.10/2008. If the turnout was 100%, then 10% of ballot boxes counted would mean 10% of the maximum possible votes counted. However, while 11.1% of ballot boxes have been opened, the votes counted only amount to 6.5% of the electorate. Assuming this ratio remains consistent, this means the turnout will only be 58.4%. This means something has gone wrong somewhere. Are Indonesians really that disillusioned, or did the KPU make such a mess of the election that millions of Indonesians were deprived of their right to vote? Either way, expect complaints from the (bad) losers.

Meanwhile the count goes on, but the rate the votes are being counted at is actually slowing (as shown in the graph). Tracking the results coming in today at the official General Election Website, at the current rate, they'll need another 10 weeks to finish the job.

So it looks like the KPU are pretty incompetent. Even the president has starting blaming them. However, the 64 million Rupiah question is: was the "incompetence" systematic (favoring one particular party, such as the president's Democratic Party for instance...) or was it just bog-standard incompetence. Indonesia's voters need to know...

The Things They Say (2)

• Charman of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDIP) Advisory Council, and husband of party leader Megawati, Taufik Kiemas:"Hanura is definite, Gerindra is definite, PPP is also definite [for a coalition with the PDIP]"

• United Development Party (PPP) secretary general Irgan Chairul Mahfiz: "The figure of SBY is more dominant and it would be very naive if the PPP did not see the tendency of the people to support SBY"

Well, the PPP - never a party to put a bargepole between itself and opportunism - seems uncertain which sinking ship to desert. It is doing fairly well so far in the count, and seems to be keeping its options open. We shall see.

Meanwhile, 4.5 million votes counted so far...

Coalitionism

You've got to feel sorry for Vice-president and Golkar chairman Jusuf Kalla. He's got a tough choice to make. It's looking like Golkar won't make the 20% of votes needed to be able to nominate their presidential candidate, i.e. Jusuf Kalla. So he has two options: try and form a coalition with one or more other parties, or crawl back to President SBY and ask if he can be VP again (not president, and he is 68). The thing is, the first option means he may end up with nothing, and the second means he will almost certainly get his old job back. So what's it to be, JK?

The other parties are also in a bit of a fix. Traditionally (well OK, in 2004) the thinking is that the president and vice-president should be a nationalist-Islam pairing. So where does Megawati's PDI-P look for a VP to keep Mega company? Golkar is nationalist, so are Gerindra and Hanura. The best bet for Golkar and the PDI-P would be the squeaky clean Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), but unless President SBY is a complete fool, he will team up with the PKS (and run on an anti-corruption ticket). Among the Islamist parties, there is the United Development Party (PPP), but it's in decline and is looking increasingly tired and, frankly, old hat. What about the National Awakening Party (now without Mega's enemy Gus Dur)? The combined PDIP and PKB vote might just be enough to make the 20% , but both are very Java-centric parties, and may not carry the non-Java vote. And the National Mandate Party (PAN) has such an elitist and over-critical image that any pairing with Golkar (the New Order party that PAN opposed during the reform euphoria of the late 90s) or the PDI-P would be such breathtaking opportunism that Indonesia's voters might well see right through them.

So where does that leave Gerindra and Hanura? Leaving aside the fact that Indonesians may not want a war criminal as president, both parties may find themselves out of friends, or fighting tooth and nail (party leaders Prabowo and Wiranto hate each other) to attract enough parties to cobble together a coalition.

Whatever happens, there will be lots of humbug, hypocrisy, legal challenges to the election result and squabbles over the few months until the presidential election. Watch this space.

Calculating Politicians

The results are trickling in. Unless the General Elections Commission (KPU) gets a move on, at the current rate of counting, and allowing for a 72% turnout, the final results will be announced in late January 2011. Let's hope the counting rate improves by a factor of 21 so the KPU can meet the 30-day deadline. However the fact that their online results page has been showing the same vote tally since 9:35am on 10 April is perhaps not a good sign. Neither is the fact that the KPU homepage hasn't been updated since the day before polling day. And they haven't managed to organize the service whereby interested voters can obtain the latest results by sending an SMS text message to a special phone number. In fact it's only down to the heroic efforts of news portal detik.com that Pemiloopy is able to track the count at all. Well done guys.

Of course fans of detik.com are able to follow the count, and all the TV stations have the numbers scrolling along the bottom of the screen, but might Pemiloopy venture to point out that the national percentages are not the key figures? To show what I mean, take the "quick count" results from a previous post. If people had voted in these proportions across the nation (yes I know - they didn't), the two parties headed by the ex-generals with dubious human rights records, Gerindra and Hanura, would win no seats at all, despite garnering 4.4% and 3.6% of the vote respectively. Indonesia's voting system, which brilliantly combines the district and proportional representation systems in a way that ensures the disadvantages of both dominate, means that they would win no seats in the first round of counting (where seats are awarded based on the number of seats in the electoral regions), and none in the second (seats awarded on the remainder of the votes). In East Java, where Gerindra fondly hopes to pick up votes from disillusioned fans of Gus Dur, 4.4% (or 5.1% of the valid vote) is not enough to pick up any first round seats, and is only just enough to be in with a chance of second round seats.

So the intriguing possibility now is that despite all that money, Prabowo and Wiranto may have blown it after all.

And the winner is... Golput!

The polls have closed and the count is presumably underway. According to the official General Elections Commission (KPU) website, everybody is still on zero votes, but these things take time.

There is a chance that abstentions, known here in Indonesia as "Golput", may be the overall winner. Polling stations Pemiloopy saw today had piles of unused ballot papers, and there were many people walking around Jakarta without the indelible ink on their pinkies, which is used to stop people voting twice. The fact that this is a long weekend probably further reduced participation: train tickets are sold out and it was almost impossible to get flights to Bali. And many people may have decided either to stay in bed recovering from watching the football last night. It remains to be seen whether voter confusion and apathy mean a record low turnout.

Anyway, four polling organizations have released the results of their "quick count surveys. The average of the four polls:

• Democratic Party: 24.66%
• Indonesian Democratic Party - Struggle (PDIP): 14.96%
• Golkar: 14.04%
• Prosperous Justice Party (PKS): 7.64%
• National Mandate Party (PAN): 5.77%
• National Awakening Party (PKB): 5.37%
• United Development Party (PPP): 5.22%
• Gerindra: 4.4%
• Hanura: 3.56%
• Everybody else - less than the 2.5% threshold

PAN seems to be doing surprisingly well, as does the PKS, but I still think they may end up lower in the rankings as polls may be underestimating the contribution of the less educated isolated voters. We shall see...

Predictions

I suppose I should put my money where my keyboard is and come up with some sort of prediction of what will happen as a result of the legislative election today.

I think incumbent President SBY's Democratic Party will come out with the largest share of the vote, largely because of the incumbent advantage. They've consistently had around 20% of the vote in the unrigged opinion polls, and this would translate into around a third of seats in the House of Representatives. That's enough to qualify for the right to nominate SBY as president again. I reckon a coalition with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is on the cards for the presidential vote - possibly with Tifatul Sembiring as the running mate.

I think Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and VP Jusuf Kalla's Golkar will each get about 15% - and just under a quarter of the seats in the House, meaning they'll have to join forces (but both want to be president!) or team up with an Islamist party each for the presidential race - possibly the United Development Party (PPP), who may still come fourth despite an incredibly low profile campaign.

There may well be enough National Awakening Party (PKB) voters in East Java to win fifth place for the party, followed by the PKS in the vote tally.

Then there are the vehicles of dubious former generals Prabowo (Gerindra Party) and Wiranto (Hanura Party). Due to the sheer flood of glossy TV ads with promises of cash to farmers and fisherman and the not-so-subtle playing of the anti-ethnic-Chinese card, Gerindra may come in seventh, or possibly fifth or sixth on name recognition alone, given the confusing array of 38 parties on the king-sized ballot paper. As for Hanura, well their recent ads have focused less on policies and more on how to find the party symbol on the ballot paper, so their being first on the list may help them to eighth place. They may still lose out to the fading National Mandate Party (PAN) though.

All in all, Pemiloopy beleives that only eight, or possibly nine, parties will pass the threshold of 2.5% necessary to be awarded seats in the legislature. Then the fun and games will really start...

Election Watchout!

The day has come! The polls open in 6 hours.

There are a number of things that need to be watched for in the coming weeks:

• East Java: There are many problems with the voter list (electoral roll), especially in East Java, where the gubernatorial election revealed oddities such as underage and deceased voters on the register, as well as many names with the same demographic code number. Coincidentally (or not), East Java is the electoral base of the National Awakening Party (PKB) which has been split asunder such that party founder Gus Dur has urged his supporters not to vote PKB but to support the Gerindra Party of disgraced former general Prabowo. Watch out for shenanigans there - especially if Gerindra fails to win enough votes to win seats in the legislature. Also treat any massive Gerindra vote with skepticism.

• Money Politics: The General Elections Commission briefly interpreted the Election Law on spending limits as only applying to individual donations, before hastily revoking its decree. The richest party is er.. Gerindra, which is bankrolled by Prabowo's older brother. Parties have to submit their accounts within 15 days after April 9.

• Aceh: The Indonesian military have been giving the Aceh Party a hard time since the army's humiliating withdrawal from Aceh. If the less-than-saintly former rebels look like doing too well, there could be violence.

• Hanura: The party of indicted human rights violator ex general Wiranto is predicted to win only 1.3% of the national vote according to a poll in Kompas newspaper (30/3/09). That would mean no seats for the party, and possible an end to his latest presidential race. If that looks likely, watch out for dirty tricks in eastern Indonesia, away from the media. Conversely, if the party does suspiciously well (although Pemiloopy thinks it will do better than the polling suggests as Hanura ran a grassroots campaign out of the reach of pollsters), that may mean something is amiss.

• Eastern Indonesia: Bastion of Golkar, possibly under threat from incumbent President SBY's Democratic Party. Far from the gaze of the national media, who knows what will happen, given the rift between SBY and his VP, Golkar chairman Jusuf Kalla.

• The count: Funny things have happened in previous elections with the percentages and totals as the votes have come in. Watch this blog for a blow-by-blow account of the latest numbers (assuming the Internet and phone network doesn't collapse under the strain).

• Old faces vanishing: Thanks to the 2.5% electoral threshold, don't be surprised if some of the older (relatively speaking) parties have their last hurrah this time round. Vulnerable parties include the Crescent Star Party (PBB), which has only ever been successful in the leader's home province, and possibly even the National Mandate Party (PAN) of reform figure Amien Rais, which may be about to go the way of the 1950s Indonesian Socialist Party due to its elitist nature and the recent split that has seen the National Sun Party break away.

A Decoupled Campaign

Well the public phase of the campaign is now over. For the three days prior to polling day on 9 April there is a "quiet period" - posters and flags are supposed to be removed.

Even more than 5 years ago, this was a campaign that showed the distance between the parties and their voters. In fact there were really two entirely separate campaigns: a minor one about politics and a more important one about money.

The political campaign took the form of TV debates and earnest articles in the more highbrow press where the few issues dividing parties were aired between commercials and among the ads. This was about the only time anybody took the parties seriously. The bulk of the campaign was frankly devoted to taking advantage of them.

The money side of the campaign was alluded to in an earlier post. On a popular TV Indonesian show today a reporter was speaking to people at campaign rallies. Not only did people freely admit they had only come for the money (R20,000 claimed one mother) and had attended many rallies but were still confused who to vote for, but many attendees could not even name the party whose T-shirts they were wearing. This included people wearing the yellow of the Golkar Party. Other opportunities to make money were there for the celebs. The Gerindra Party of disgraced former general Prabowo had a singing trio modestly called the 3 Divas, which includes Krisdayanti - who is more often seen on TV advertising vitamin supplements and laxatives. Meanwhile the group Radja performed rallies for four different parties.

The media also had a laugh at the politician's expense. on a TV show called Kontes de Parpol, the hosts abused the party representatives present in the studio while making money from an SMS text opinion poll.

The campaign has been underway for more than two weeks, and many people still have no idea about what the parties stand for. It seems likely they will vote for familiar faces because the people (but not the parties?) at least realize that they can get away with not voting for the parties whose money they took. Which means the Democratic Party of incumbent President SBY should be OK. It remains to be seen how many people will have fallen for the flood of Gerindra ads paid for by Prabowo's billionaire brother...