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Indonesian president poised to win 2nd term
By ANTHONY DEUTSCH,Associated Press Writer AP - Wednesday, July 8
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia's president, whose popular economic policies and corruption-free image boosted him to the top of pre-election polls, is counting on a single-round victory when the emerging democracy picks its next leader Wednesday.
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The majority of Indonesians are satisfied with the country's newfound economic and political stability, following decades of brutal authoritarian rule. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's campaign team seems have captured most voters with promises of the same policies _ an approach that runs counter to recent elections in countries like Iran and the U.S., which have issued loud calls for change.
Opinion polls indicate that Yudhoyono, the first directly elected president in Indonesia, will win the necessary 50 percent of votes to defeat two opponents and avoid a September runoff _ in what amounts to a passing grade for his first five-year term.
Until recently, Indonesia was wracked by secessionist battles, suicide bombings by al-Qaida-funded Islamic militants, and millions of job losses after the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 toppled the banking system.
Today, the predominantly Muslim country of 235 million is enjoying a level of harmony its critics had said was impossible, with its economy growing at 4 percent a year amid a severe global downturn. A number of its Southeast Asian neighbors, including prosperous Thailand, are headed in the opposite direction.
"Unless there is some dramatic political event, a first-round win (for Yudhoyono) is highly possible," said Sunny Tanuwidjaja, a researcher at the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Voters know what they will be getting over the next five years with Yudhoyono. Indonesia is headed toward five more years of stability."
Still, Indonesia faces huge obstacles in attracting foreign investment to improve its crumbling infrastructure, creating an independent judiciary, and reducing poverty of up to 100 million people. It has also struggled to stop illegal logging and mining that are depleting its natural resources and causing global warming.
Most public opinion polls in Indonesia are funded by political parties, but even the surveys paid for by Yudhoyono's opponents put the 59-year-old former general 10 percent ahead of the closest rival. Pro-Yudhoyono pollsters give him a 30 percent lead at 70 percent of the vote. Yudhoyono needs 50 percent of cast ballots to win in one round.
Yudhoyono is competing against Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president whose father was the first postcolonial leader of Indonesia, and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the frontman of the ex-dictator's political machine, Golkar.
It has been a decade since the Suharto regime was ousted in a public uprising in 1998, but leaders of the country's military past still play an active role in politics. The courts, police and parliament are regularly ranked among the most corrupt institutions in the world by anti-graft watchdogs.
The running mates of Yudhoyono's opponents, former generals Prabowo Subianto and Wiranto, faced accusations by U.N. prosecutors and rights groups of atrocities during the dictatorship, but are expected to win millions of votes.
Foreign observers are hopeful that a win for Yudhoyono, whose Democratic Party tripled its parliamentary seats in April legislative elections after spending $2 billion on cash handouts for the poor, will reinvigorate the push to eradicate graft and nepotism.
But a former Corruption Eradication Commission deputy chairman, Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas, told reporters Tuesday the president "is failing to respond to unjust attacks" on the commission, a reference to police investigations into two commissioners.
"Indonesia's anti-corruption movement is at stake and needs commitment from the president," he said.
Yudhoyono has gained a name at home and abroad for his clean reputation, and a crackdown on Southeast Asia's Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network after a series of attacks between 2002 and 2005 killed more than 240 people, most of them foreign tourists on Bali.
The Indonesian Survey Circle, which has accurately forecast previous elections, predicted in a poll published Monday that Yudhoyono would win more than 50 percent of the popular vote. It said Sukarnoputri and Kalla would garner less than 30 percent.
The independent agency said it conducted 2,000 face-to-face interviews in the nationwide survey in mid-June, and that it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. It declined to tell The Associated Press who commissioned the survey.
Around 176 million people signed up to vote at more than half a million polling stations. The Constitutional Court sided with an opposition demand this week that other citizens _ possibly tens of millions _ will be allowed to make last-minute registrations to exercise their right to vote.
The National Election Commission overseeing the polls has been widely criticized for failing to compile a list of registered voters, as it did in the April elections. Yudhoyono's rivals _ while providing no proof _ claim that millions of people will be unable to participate.
Every voter will have their index finger dipped in ink to show they have cast their ballot _ a system designed to avoid duplications.
___
AP reporter Zakki Hakim in Jakarta contributed to this report.
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