Campaigning starts this week for Indonesia's general election, with a resurgent Golkar party that backed former dictator Suharto hoping to capitalize on disenchantment with President Megawati Sukarnoputri's administration.
Even a senior official of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) says it has little to offer voters when campaigning begins Thursday for the April 5 ballot.
Roy Janis, PDI-P's executive board chairman, says his party's lack of spirit has opened the way for a Golkar resurgence. "It will be good enough if we can hold on to what we had before," Janis said.
In 1999, the country's first free election in four decades, PDI-P won 34 percent of the vote with widespread support from the "wong cilik" (little people) and from those seeking a change after 32 years of repression under Suharto.
This year's elections for the House of Representatives, regional legislatures and a new chamber representing the provinces will precede the first ever direct presidential vote on July 5.
"Mrs Mega hasn't succeeded yet, hasn't yet been seen to side with the people. Party of the little people, they call it, but in practice we haven't done much," said Janis, 46, a longtime Megawati associate.
He says she believes in reform but has an ineffective cabinet and has not had enough time to resolve the country's problems since being elected by parliament in July 2001.
Golkar predicts it will increase its vote to 30 percent from 22 percent in 1999 when it faced widespread public disgust at its "corruption, collusion and nepotism." The party is set for a comeback after PDI-P failed to implement reform, overcome a six-year-old economic crisis or tackle problems like corruption, said Fahmi Idris, a Golkar deputy chairman.
"In the 2004 election Golkar has a very good chance to be the winner," Idris, 60, said. Recent opinion polls put Golkar first among 24 parties contesting the poll, with PDI-P second.
But many of the country's more than 147 million voters remain undecided. A survey by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in December and January found 49 percent of Indonesians have not settled on a party.
Many Jakarta residents have told AFP they won't bother voting because politicians care only about themselves, not the people.
"They see that the election will not provide them with a way out of their everyday problems," said Adian Napitupulu, 32, who has been fighting for political change through the City Forum activist group since 1998 when a mass student movement helped topple Suharto.
Napitupulu said Megawati has not spoken out on issues affecting the poor. "So what wong cilik is Megawati struggling for? She isn't." Napitupulu predicts Golkar will win the general elections because of the weakness of the pro-democracy movement, but that Megawati will be re-elected president.
Arbi Sanit, a political science lecturer at the University of Indonesia, said that although there is widespread disappointment with Megawati, it will not translate into the loss of enough seats to cost PDI-P the general election.
He thinks Golkar will lose even more votes, partly because of public dissatisfaction after the Supreme Court cleared Golkar chairman Akbar Tanjung of misappropriating 40 billion rupiah (4.7 million dollars) in state funds.
Frans Hendra Winata, a human rights lawyer, said that despite her failures Megawati will retain the presidency and PDI-P will win the general election simply because of her name.
Megawati is the daughter of Sukarno, the country's revered and charismatic first president forced from power by Suharto in 1966. "The name 'Sukarno' is still selling in this country," Winata said. "That is something deep-rooted in the minds of the peasant farmers, labourers, fishermen and so on."