Now what?

So the voting has come and gone for most areas, apart from the odd mix-up. No sign of any counting so far, which is rather odd...

Nobody got the 25 percent of the vote they needed to nominate the president of their choice. The biggest surprise was the poor performance of the Indonesian Party of Struggle (PDI-P): the much talked about "Jokowi effect" - a magical rise in their fortunes as a result of nominating the popular governor of Jakarta for the presidency - didn't really happen. According to the "quick count" result, the party got around 19%, little better than in 2004, and the 33% of 1999 seems to have been an all-time high for the party. Or perhaps the Jokowi effect was little more than a minor reversal of the PDI-P''s decline.

In any case, they stuffed it up. At the start of the campaign, all the PDI-P TV ads featured party chairwoman Megawati's daughter Puan, who is little more than a thinner and slightly less stupid version of her mother. Perhaps the PDI-P looked at the results of its private polling and had a bit of a panic at the projected vote for Mussolini wannabee Prabowo's Gerindra Party vehicle, so hastily nominated Jokowi for the top job. By then it was too late, and the party didn't do nearly as well as Mega had hoped.

Meanwhile, the Islamist parties, having been written off by many (including me, ahem!) did better than expected. This may be the result of a very low turnout, with only the loyal supporters of the minor parties (including startup Nasdem) having bothered to turn out. Those who voted for the major parties last time may well have stayed at home in disgust, and the percentage of the vote (not the actual number of votes) of the small parties rose as a result.

And now who gets to run for the presidency. History tells us that the PDI-P will find an Islamist non-entity to run as vice-president alongside the nationalist Jokowi. But the PDI-P may well be tempted to sidle up to the National Awakening Party (PKB), which seems to have won around 9%, presumably mostly in its East Java stronghold. Despite not having a serious presidential candidate (singer Rhoma Irama?! Please!), 19+9=28. The PDI-P may well feel the need to recruit more widely, perhaps flirting with media tycoon Surya Paloh's Nasdem Party vehicle. That should produce some sympathetic coverage on Surya's Metro TV.

Meanwhile the Golkar Party may end up getting into bed with Prabowo's Gerindra Party and a few other minnows. Insanely presidency-obsessed Prabowo may settle for the vice-presidential spot if Golkar leader Bakrie provides a cast-iron promise to support Prabowo for the presidency in 2014. Bakrie will then have 5 years to think of a way to break that promise, which should be plenty of time.

Nothing, even the turnout, is certain yet, because of the strange silence from the General Elections Commission. Unlike previous years, there have been no announcements at all about the interim count - not even from the capital, where the process should be easier. All rather odd...