Deakin Speaking

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There has been some disquiet about each of the three pairs of candidates for president and vice-president are former army generals. Two of these generals have been identified as having been responsible for war crimes in the pre-democratic era.

Current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was the intellectual leader of the Suharto-era army’s reform faction and, as such, has the cleanest military record of the three. As president for the past five years SBY, as he is known, has overseen the continuing if somewhat cautious reform of Indonesian political and administrative life.

SBY is also the most favoured candidate to win the election, and is overwhelmingly the preferred candidate of most foreign governments. In a country in which patronage and ethnicity continue to play an important role, however, SBY’s choice of running mate, central bank governor and former economics minister Boediono, is a good administrative choice but, as another Javanese, not one that will win SBY any additional votes.

Many had hoped that SBY would have again been able to team with his former vice-president and Golkar Party head Jusuf Kalla. While SBY is Javanese, Kalla hails from the eastern island of Sulawesi. Perhaps more importantly, Kalla would also have been able to help give SBY a legislative majority, necessary to enact his political program.

Kalla, however, had his own ambitions, and he and SBY have not worked cooperatively  since 2007. Apart from his party’s strong support base, Kalla is a competent manager and helped achieve conflict resolution in Ambon, Sulawesi and Aceh. Both Kalla and SBY have claimed ending the Aceh conflict as their own success, which has become one of the disputes between them.

In order for Kalla to have Javanese support, he has instead teamed up with ex-general Wiranto. Wiranto was commander of the Indonesian military during the 1999 mayhem in East Timor and was identified as ultimately being responsible for the rampage by the army and their proxy militias both prior to and especially after the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence.

To his credit, though, in 1998 Wiranto did manage the transition from Suharto’s dictatorship to the process of democratisation. It was quite possible at that time for Indonesia to have had a much more bloody and democratically less successful outcome, for which Wiranto can take considerable credit.

Former president, Megawati Sukarnoputri has teamed up with ex-general Prabowo Subianto, who is not only a son-in-law of the late President Suharto but was head of the army’s notorious Kopassus special forces. Prabowo was sacked from the army by Wiranto for organising the kidnapping and murder of pro-democracy activists in 1998. Prabowo’s bloody history, however, goes much further than that last incident, and includes organising or participating in profound human rights abuses in East Timor, West Papua and Aceh.

For her own part, Megawati was a lacklustre president whose leadership was characterised by being captive to the then reactionary faction of the Indonesian army. As president, she presided over economic drift, failed policy implementation and Indonesia’s largest ever military campaign, in 2003, against the Free Aceh Movement.

Indonesian politics has historically been characterised by patron-client relations, personality politics and vote-buying. So what is most interesting about the 2009 elections is the way is which the parties and their presidential candidates are increasingly taking on a more conventional ideological orientation.

There is little distinction between the economic policies of the three pairs of candidates, with all adopting International Monetary Fund recommendations. In one interesting move, Kalla and Wiranto have said they will double the defence budget. This is supposed to develop a more competitive domestic arms industry to reduce foreign reliance.

The difference between SBY and Megawati is principally around degrees of popularism and competence. SBY tends to follow policies that are more sensible and less popular, such as ending fuel subsidies. Megawati tends to prefer being popular if at the expense of competent economic management.

Based on social policies and commitment to continuing reform, Megawati and Prabowo represent the conservative and more authoritarian end of Indonesia’s political spectrum. Kalla and Wiranto both have a history of limited reform and can be seen to chart a centrist political course.

SBY in particular has not only built his own reformist Democratic Party but has formed alliances with Islamic parties which, while religiously conservative, have a strong social welfare orientation. This social welfare and reform orientation, then, gives SBY a center-left hue.

It is very likely that none of the three pairs of candidates will receive an absolute majority in the election, with the two leading pairs going into a run-off election. The indications are that the contest will be SBY-Boediono. competing with whoever of the Megawati-Prabowo or Kalla-Wiranto alliances is still standing, and that SBY-Boediano will ultimately win the run-off.

An SBY-Boediono would be the best outcome for Indonesia’s continued democratic reform, and probably for the competent administration of what remains a large, complex and occasionally chaotic state. But more than that, the election process itself is an important symbol of Indonesia’s democratic consolidation. 

The difference between SBY and Megawati is principally around degrees of popularism and competence. SBY tends to follow policies that are more sensible and less popular, such as ending fuel subsidies. Megawati tends to prefer being popular if at the expense of competent economic management.
Based on social policies and commitment to continuing reform, Megawati and Prabowo represent the conservative and more authoritarian end of Indonesia’s political spectrum. Kalla and Wiranto both have a history of limited reform and can be seen to chart a centrist political course.
SBY in particular has not only built his own reformist Democratic Party but has formed alliances with Islamic parties which, while religiously conservative, have a strong social welfare orientation. This social welfare and reform orientation, then, gives SBY a center-left hue.
It is very likely that none of the three pairs of candidates will receive an absolute majority in the election, with the two leading pairs going into a run-off election. The indications are that the contest will be SBY-Boediono. competing with whoever of the Megawati-Prabowo or Kalla-Wiranto alliances is still standing, and that SBY-Boediano will ultimately win the run-off.
An SBY-Boediono would be the best outcome for Indonesia’s continued democratic reform, and probably for the competent administration of what remains a large, complex and occasionally chaotic state. But more than that, the election process itself is an important symbol of Indonesia’s democratic consolidation.