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Indonesia president eyes allies, but coalition may take weeks
Sun Apr 12, 2009 3:15am EDT
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By Karima Anjani and Sunanda Creagh
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's president may tap an Islamist party with a tough stance on graft for his coalition, as well as other groups ahead of presidential elections in July, aiming for a stable and united alliance to improve governance.
Coalition-building by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party could take days or even weeks, and will ultimately dictate the pace of reform in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.
Party leaders have already held a flurry of talks in recent days in a rush to start building powerful pacts.
Fewer than one million votes from 170 million registered voters have been counted by the general election commission so far, with initial results based on quick counts from sample polling stations.
While the Democrat Party won the most votes, at around 20 percent, it was less than the nearly 30 percent that some opinion polls had predicted. That has forced the Democrats into coalition talks before the more important presidential vote that Yudhoyono, Indonesia's most popular party leader, is tipped to win.
"What we see now is merely discussion" said Anies Baswedan, a political analyst and rector of Paramadina University in Jakarta.
As Indonesia feels the effect of a global economic downturn, attention will focus on who Yudhoyono, 59, picks as political allies, because of the impact on cabinet posts and policy-making.
Indonesia needs to woo billions of dollars of investment to address its creaking infrastructure, create jobs, and achieve a faster pace of growth, which is set to slow to 3-4 percent this year, from 6.1 percent in 2008. Endemic graft, red tape and legal uncertainty still deter investors and needs to be addressed.
Yudhoyono, a reform-minded ex-general, won Indonesia's first direct presidential election in 2004 on promises to crack down on corruption, boost economic growth and create jobs.
But because his party won a small share of the seats in 2004, he had to offer some cabinet posts to political allies, a move which thwarted reform and slowed down decision-making.
On Friday, Yudhoyono stressed he wanted a committed coalition this time and said it could include the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), an Islamist party which has done well in some key local elections because of its emphasis on clean, efficient governance, but which could also alienate minorities and moderates.
"It's difficult because (Yudhoyono) could lose votes, it may cause people to stay away from him as the nationalists aren't comfortable enough to be partners with PKS," said Baswedan.
Yudhoyono also appeared to leave the door open to extending an alliance with the Golkar Party, the long-time political vehicle for Suharto, the country's late autocratic ruler.
ELECTION HITCHES
Thursday's parliamentary elections, a massive exercise in democracy in the 17,000-island archipelago, went relatively smoothly, but were marred by violence in Papua, east Indonesia, and hitches with voter lists and distribution of ballot papers. Continued...
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