JAKARTA, 12 April 2004 — Just three weeks ago President Megawati Sukarnoputri was aiming for a landslide victory in Indonesia’s general election.
Now she faces a battle to hold on to her job in July’s presidential poll after millions of voters — alienated by her aloofness — deserted her party in last week’s legislative poll, analysts say.
Partial results as of yesterday afternoon showed Megawati’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) trailing the Golkar party of former dictator Suharto. PDI-P had just 20.32 percent of the vote compared with the 34 percent it won in 1999.
Opinion polls even before the April 5 election showed the majority of electors preferred former Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Megawati for president. Yudhoyono resigned as Megawati’s security minister last month and declared that he would run for president.
Analysts attribute Megawati’s declining popularity to her government’s failure to make real economic improvements or get tough on corruption and to her personal aloofness.
Despite some macroeconomic improvements, average people have not seen change for the better, said political commentator Dewi Fortuna Anwar.
“Megawati’s party was supported by the little people but under her leadership the economy is growing at a snail’s pace and jobs are hard to come by,” Anwar told AFP.
Anwar said the taciturn Megawati had failed personally to express her stance on issues of public concern such as terrorism, the withdrawal of fuel subsidies and price increases, making her far removed from her supporters.
“The decline in Megawati’s popularity has a positive correlation with the increase in Yudhoyono’s popularity,” Anwar told AFP.
“Megawati is too aloof. In major issues like Aceh and terrorism, it was the security minister (Yudhoyono) who appeared boldly before the public, just like Bush,” said Anwar, who was a presidential adviser during the B.J. Habibie administration.
Megawati, then vice president, took over in July 2001 when President Abdurrahman Wahid was sacked for incompetence.
She said last month that PDI-P was aiming for a landslide 57 percent of the vote in the April 5 legislative election.
Despite PDI-P’s loss of support, the predicted shift to Golkar did not happen. It had just 20.43 percent on Sunday, even less than the 22 percent it secured in 1999.
Instead voters turned to two upstart groups: Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party and the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party, which yesterday had won 7.48 percent and 6.99 percent of the vote respectively.
Arbi Sanit, political science lecturer at the University of Indonesia, said a lackluster economic performance was to blame for Megawati’s dip in popularity.
“Her government is not seen as solving the people’s problems,” Sanit said.
Megawati has also alienated supporters due to her backing for unpopular candidates in regional leadership elections, he said.
“Sutiyoso’s (Jakarta governor) was personally supported by Megawati but he evicted Jakarta slum dwellers. The eviction hurt people deeply,” Sanit said.
Sanit said most of the votes her party bagged in last week’s election came from primordial supporters still captivated by her charisma as a daughter of founding President Sukarno rather than from informed voters.
Sanit and Anwar agreed that Megawati is facing an uphill battle for the presidency. “Megawati is in trouble — unless voters think ‘Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t’,” Anwar said.
Political analyst Sukardi Rinakit said voters turned to Yudhoyono because they were nostalgic about security and stability associated with strong leadership. Indonesia has in recent years been rocked by a series of terror attacks by Islamic militants.
“We are longing for security and (Yudhoyono) is a representation of that,” Rinakit said.
