Robert Go, Jakarta – President Megawati Sukarnoputri yesterday launched a re-election charm offensive aimed at drawing support from Indonesia's millions of poor people.

With barely five weeks to go before the July 5 presidential election, she is trailing about 20 points in opinion polls behind the frontrunner, retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

A day ahead of the launch of official campaigning, Ms Megawati and running mate Hasyim Muzadi sought to close the gap by publicising a vote-getting plan targeted at the masses.

Their vision calls for creating 12.9 million jobs, hiring half a million new teachers, building schools and health clinics, and giving more loans to small businesses.

Underneath a banner that read: Untuk orang kecil kita berjuang ("We struggle for the small folk"), they also pledged to keep up rice, fuel and fertiliser subsidies, fight graft and halve the poverty rate, which now stands at around 17 per cent, by 2009.

Observers have credited her with restoring stability, but fault her government for failing to tackle corruption and reduce poverty. She is also seen as being out of touch with the common people.

Yesterday's press event – unprecedented for being her first full news briefing during her three years in power – was an apparent attempt to rally support and answer her critics.

"My government has shown progress," she insisted during the half-hour press conference. "Our focus now is to speed up reforms..." Taking issue with the view that hers was a failed tenure, she said: "People who say the economy is stagnant are not looking at the facts. Do you think it is easy to manage 220 million people, all of whom have their own opinions?" The President sidestepped questions on how her government would pay for the initiatives.

When asked whether she could beat Mr Bambang, she said testily: "To win or lose is normal." Mr Laksamana Sukardi, a member of the presidential inner circle, said: "In politics, things can change week by week, and there is no such thing as too little, too late."

But other observers said Ms Megawati faces a tough battle and her new approach smacks of desperation. Her PDI-P party lost 40 per cent of its support in the April parliamentary polls, compared with its 1999 showing.

Mr Umar Juoro of the Centre for Information and Development Studies said: "Since the 1999 elections, PDI-P and Megawati have not really focused on the poor, their main constituency. Now they are scrambling to get back to the folks in the villages. Unfortunately for them, there is little likelihood that the people will buy it. Megawati should have been doing this during the last five years, and not just right before an election."