Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, Jakarta – If one thought that regional elections would produce a more accurate map of the strengths and ideological leanings of political parties, think again!

Thirteen months and some 211 local elections – including seven at the provincial level, 130 at the regency level and 34 at the municipal level, with eight more due this year – since the first one was held in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, we have learned that political parties are as fickle as voters.

The only conclusion that can be made is that the balance of power is very much "status quo", mirroring the results of the 2004 general election.

Nationalist parties are not waning, but neither are Islamic ones gaining in strength. No party is making solid gains and no parties seem to have succeeded in making inroads toward establishing a bottom-up support system across the archipelago.

Most, if not all, political parties have been un-ideological, peddling alliances for the sake of victory. This includes two of the major players, Golkar Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

PDI-P can claim the upper hand with victories in several high-profile areas, such as gubernatorial elections in West Sumatra, North Sulawesi and Central Kalimantan, and elections in the cities of Surabaya and Ambon. The party can also be proud of approaching its target of victory in 40 percent of regional elections.

Nevertheless, a thorough tabulation shows that generally the spoils have been somewhat evenly split.

Golkar Party has not achieved its declared target of sweeping up 60 percent of the elections. But frankly that target was unrealistic, given its returns in the 2004 general election of just 21.5 percent.

Golkar's "failure" was again mainly due to its inability to win on Java, where it won less than a dozen elections. Most of Golkar's victories were is eastern Indonesia.

Despite this, Golkar still won about one-third of contested elections. It won only two of the seven gubernatorial elections, but it still prevailed in over a third of the regency-level elections and in nearly half of the mayoral polls.

It should also be noted that compared to the PDI-P, Golkar does much better in single party candidacies (tickets/candidates which are backed by only one party). Golkar won 39 elections where it was the sole party sponsor, compared to PDI-P which only won 19 elections by itself.

The most interesting development is how pragmatic the parties have been. Ideology and political lines, which seem so dominant in Jakarta, are easily crossed in the regions. There is no detectable pattern of coalitions, other than being a coalition of (short-term) interest.

Nearly two-thirds of winning tickets (candidates) were nominated by a coalition of parties. One winning ticket in Banyuwangi, East Java, was supported by as many as 18 political parties.

Nowhere is this lack of consistency in coalitions more apparent than in East Java, where political parties, namely Golkar, the PDI-P and the National Awakening Party (PKB), compete with each other in one regency but coalesce in an adjacent one.

Despite claiming to be staunch nationalist-pluralist parties, neither Golkar nor the PDI-P is adverse to cooperating with each other or with Islamist parties such as the PKS, as was the case in Pandeglang, Banten.

Neither do they turn away from cooperation with parties, such as Partai Patriot and the PKPB, which at the national level are considered "inconsequential".

One consistent trend demonstrated by the results of regional elections is to debunk the "myth" of a "greening" of the political landscape. Nationalist parties remain the predominant force. Coalitions involving nationalist parties remain the predominant winners. Islamist parties, or their coalitions, have won just 17 elections. Two of these are significant: the PKS winning in Depok, and a PKS-PBR coalition winning the gubernatorial post in Bengkulu.

One lesson that can be learned from all these elections is that parties like the PDI-P have been relatively successful because they are more open to receiving nominations from outside the party. Compare this to Golkar which, until recently, remained mired in its old style, politically laced internal nomination process.

While it may be a good short-term strategy for parties to look outside for nominations, in the longer term there are serious questions about the viability of the parties since the elected representatives will not necessarily be party loyalists, and may not be personally inclined to follow party directives once in office.