Michael Richardson, Jakarta – The Indonesian armed forces, for many years a bastion of political support for the authoritarian government of former President Suharto, declared that they were neutral in parliamentary elections held last week, helping to make the polls a genuine contest for the first time since 1955.
But analysts said Sunday that such a hands-off approach was unlikely to continue as the military seeks to protect its interests amid intense maneuvering over the next few months not just to form a coalition government, but for the main political prize – the post of executive president of Indonesia.
Megawati Sukarnoputri – leader of the Indonesian Democracy Party-Struggle that seems likely to emerge from the elections with the largest plurality of votes, but still well short of a majority – has been careful not to antagonize the armed forces. Indeed, by adopting a nationalist line on many issues, including the need to maintain the unity of Indonesia in its present form, Mrs. Megawati has echoed some of their chief concerns.
Amien Rais, chairman of the National Mandate Party, the group that lies fifth in the partial vote count, said over the weekend that he would not agree to form a coalition with Mrs. Megawati's party unless she agreed to four conditions, among them phasing out the "dual function," of the military in which it has a legally sanctioned political role in addition to operating as an external defense and internal security force.
Mr. Rais's statement reflects the suspicion among many reformist civilian politicians that the military is positioning itself to act as king-maker in a situation where no party commands a majority in either the new Parliament or the electoral college that is due to choose the next president and vice president of the country, in November.
Since the forced resignation of Mr. Suharto just over a year ago amid student-led protests, riots and the worst recession in more than 30 years, the armed forces have been widely blamed for propping up a corrupt autocracy and committing many human rights abuses.
"The events of 1998 have put the military on the defensive as never before," said Harold Crouch of the Australian National University in Canberra, who is a specialist on the Indonesian armed forces.
To try to regain respect – while preserving as much of its power, privileges and business interests as possible – the armed forces, headed by their commander, General Wiranto, who is also Defense Minister, agreed to moves by Parliament in December to cut the number of seats reserved for military appointees to 38 from 75 in the 500-seat national legislature. Similar cuts applied to military appointees in the 27 provincial assemblies, whose members were also elected last week.
But with 288,000 troops spread widely across Indonesia, and many provincial leaders who come from the military, the armed forces still have what one analyst called a "parallel administration" from the highest echelons of government down to village level.
The military's 38 seats in Parliament amount to almost 8 percent of the total – more than any of the 48 parties contesting the elections, except the top three or four, are likely to gain.
The president and vice president of Indonesia are chosen by the People's Consultative Assembly, the top constitutional body in the country. It is made up of the 500 members of Parliament, plus 135 representatives of provincial legislatures and 65 appointees from civic and professional bodies.
As a result, Mr. Crouch expects that the military will be able to wield a bloc of about 65 delegates out of 700 in the assembly, nearly 10 percent of the total.
"The armed forces are hardly in a position to push their own candidate for president," Mr. Crouch said. "But they could still hold the balance of power between rival coalitions of parties, and could therefore exact important concessions as the price for their votes."