Robert Go, Jakarta – One reading of the election aftermath has the old guard and the Suharto clan making a comeback.

After all, Suharto's daughter, who took part in the campaigning, had openly banked on nostalgia for her father to bring in the votes.

Golkar, thought to be taking its last breath in 1999, also won the April 5 legislative polls and will have the single biggest faction in Parliament.

And two former generals, one linked to the violence that wrecked East Timor – now known as Timor Leste – are leading presidential contenders.

Those who adopt this reading are in a tizzy. They would say that democracy here is under threat, and would lament about the failed reform movement. But there is no reason, yet, to fret.

Some democracy was indeed at play when the people went to polling stations three weeks ago.

First off, Suharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, better known here as Mbak Tutut, was said to have had the election's biggest war chest, perhaps a fraction of the billions of dollars the clan supposedly stashed away during Suharto's 32-year rule.

She gave out scholarships and her ads featured "regular" people who confessed that they had been better off before reform and democracy became buzzwords. However, Mbak Tutut's party well and truly flopped. It got just over 2 per cent of votes, and only two representatives in the 550-strong DPR, the national Parliament.

Next up is Golkar. Before the elections, analysts said it could get as much as 30 per cent support, a significant increase from its 24 per cent tally in 1999. It would beat its biggest rival, President Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-P, by at least five percentage points, pundits declared.

Golkar can claim victory but it trounced no one. Its projected total of between 21 and 22 per cent is actually a drop from the last time around. So chest puffing, perhaps, isn't quite warranted for Golkar cadres.

Finally, there are the two former generals, Mr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono alias SBY and Mr Wiranto, a former military chief. A bet for one of them to become the country's next leader by the year's end wouldn't be a bad one. Both offer strong leadership.

SBY claims credit for stabilising the country in the last 2 1/2 years, but Mr Wiranto perhaps scores points because he was at one time SBY's boss.

But that's not all they're offering. Both, strangely enough, are talking a lot about being defenders of democracy. And Mr Wiranto has gone so far as to say that if elected, he would stay in office for only one five-year term.

These are statements that neither would have had to make during the Suharto days. The two generals' pledges are perhaps the most concrete evidence that Indonesia has changed too much to allow a Suharto revival.

Indonesians voted for change on April 5. There's a good chance they'll opt for strong leadership in the presidential election in July and a possible second round two months later. And there are perhaps good reasons to think they won't choose a Suharto clone to retake the helm.