Jakarta – With his almost unlimited financial capacity and increasing popularity, Prabowo Subianto is shaping up to be President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's (SBY) strongest opponent in the upcoming presidential election, a seminar concluded in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Speaking at the seminar, political experts agreed that if Prabowo could win the support of major parties such as the Golkar Party or the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), his presidential bid could become a real threat to SBY.
"Prabowo is the only candidate with enough fire-power to challenge the incumbent," National Survey Institute (LSN) director Umar S. Bakry said during the discussion.
"He has a completely different persona from SBY, whom many see as indecisive and conservative. Prabowo has displayed feisty, risk-taking, straight to the point and decisive characteristics," he added.
Throughout his election campaign, Prabowo has constantly criticized SBY's neo-liberalistic economic policies, which he claims have done nothing to improve welfare, particularly for the poorest in Indonesia. "And what is more is the fact that he is a newcomer in the game. SBY will have a hard time predicting his moves," Bakry said.
Some experts had already predicted that anybody wishing to seriously challenge Yudhoyono would have to include Prabowo in their coalition. "Prabowo's popularity continues to increase. If he can gather support from the PDI-P or Golkar then he can challenge SBY," political communication expert Effendi Ghazali said recently.
The experts also claim that PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri is daydreaming if she believes she can ever beat SBY in the presidential election. "Even if Megawati's popularity ranks second after SBY in some surveys, the percentages tend to decline. If Mega goes head to head against SBY, then he will most certainly knock her out cold," Umar said.
The people's lack of trust in Megawati is the main factor hindering her from presidential success said Jeffrey Winters, a political-economy professor from the Northwestern University in Chicago and an expert on Indonesia.
"Such a lack of trust came about because she failed to carry through promises during her first reign as president. People had high hopes when she became president in 1999 because of her image as Sukarno's daughter. However, she dropped the ball and disappointed a lot of people," Winters said. "Megawati only continued the New Order policies. People's dreams faded into a reality that they had chosen an incapable president."
The director of the Institute for Democracy Research and Welfare State (Pedoman) Fadjroel Rachman said Megawati blew her chance to win over the people in 1998 when she failed to carry out much-needed reforms.
Umar said based on her slim chances of victory, it would make sense for Mega to take the initiative to pull out of the race and support Prabowo. "She should consider stepping down not only for her own sake but for the PDI-P as well. Another loss would be very demoralizing for the party." (hdt)