National Election Day 14th
Feb 11th 2024, 11:49 pm
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National Election Day 14th
Indonesians will go to the polls nationally on Wednesday, February 14, to elect a new President and a new cabal of politicians.
My friends in Jakarta who follow national politics, say it's a certainly that the Suharto era ex-general Prabowo Wubianto will win. Nobody will predict by what margin but he made a master move by appointing the son of the outgoing President, Jokowi Widodo, as his Vice-Presidential candidate.
The Prabowo campaign has been masterfully planned and cleverly (deliberately?) subdued. Prabowo was keen to leave behind his murky past as a Suharto hit man (Timor) and reinvent himself as a New Age flower child. The Vice-President is 36 years old and was somehow fast-tracked into the campaign - Indonesia has a law prohibiting anyone under 40 from running for Parliament but Jokowi has a relative in the Supreme Court and, well, these rules can always be changed.
Casual estimates of how long the alliance between the two will last vary from a few weeks to about a year, although all are hoping the union will lead to good economic and social results for the country.
The other two candidates are regarded (at least by my friends) as far-off seconds in the race. Indonesian politicians ar often known for their off-the-cuff decisions and in time if youngster Gibran Rakabuming Raka (Jokowi's heir), who is 36, proves too difficult to deal with, Prabowo may decide to put in someone new as his 'second'. As my friends believe, future political events in the country will surely depend on how much majority he wins on his own, or if he has to negotiate with other candidates parties for their support in order to govern.
The shadow of Megawatt Sukarnoputri hovers very much in the not-so-distant background to all this.
There is of course the possibility that all three candidates will end up with exactly one-third of the vote - as happened in Australia in 2011 when Labor and the LNP ended up in a draw and had to negotiate with the Greens and independents to form a small-majority government. Julia Gillard won out and went on to govern until 2013 when toppled in a coup by Kevin Rudd, who then lost to the Liberals under Tony Abbott.
Post-election events are anticipated and the country's Chinese minority is definitely on guard and watching, but the popular word (or maybe hope) is all will be peaceful and no great economic upheavals are anticipated.
My friends in Jakarta who follow national politics, say it's a certainly that the Suharto era ex-general Prabowo Wubianto will win. Nobody will predict by what margin but he made a master move by appointing the son of the outgoing President, Jokowi Widodo, as his Vice-Presidential candidate.
The Prabowo campaign has been masterfully planned and cleverly (deliberately?) subdued. Prabowo was keen to leave behind his murky past as a Suharto hit man (Timor) and reinvent himself as a New Age flower child. The Vice-President is 36 years old and was somehow fast-tracked into the campaign - Indonesia has a law prohibiting anyone under 40 from running for Parliament but Jokowi has a relative in the Supreme Court and, well, these rules can always be changed.
Casual estimates of how long the alliance between the two will last vary from a few weeks to about a year, although all are hoping the union will lead to good economic and social results for the country.
The other two candidates are regarded (at least by my friends) as far-off seconds in the race. Indonesian politicians ar often known for their off-the-cuff decisions and in time if youngster Gibran Rakabuming Raka (Jokowi's heir), who is 36, proves too difficult to deal with, Prabowo may decide to put in someone new as his 'second'. As my friends believe, future political events in the country will surely depend on how much majority he wins on his own, or if he has to negotiate with other candidates parties for their support in order to govern.
The shadow of Megawatt Sukarnoputri hovers very much in the not-so-distant background to all this.
There is of course the possibility that all three candidates will end up with exactly one-third of the vote - as happened in Australia in 2011 when Labor and the LNP ended up in a draw and had to negotiate with the Greens and independents to form a small-majority government. Julia Gillard won out and went on to govern until 2013 when toppled in a coup by Kevin Rudd, who then lost to the Liberals under Tony Abbott.
Post-election events are anticipated and the country's Chinese minority is definitely on guard and watching, but the popular word (or maybe hope) is all will be peaceful and no great economic upheavals are anticipated.
