Vaudine England and agencies, Jakarta – All bets are now off for the forthcoming presidential poll in the wake of several startling, democratic events in the country's highest political body, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
As deliberation proceeds on who should be Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR), politicians and observers were yesterday still trying to understand the 11th-hour success of reformist politician Amien Rais in securing the Speaker's job in the MPR.
Meanwhile, the bloc of Muslim parties which lobbied for Mr Rais was now said to be pressuring the Golkar party to support Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid in the October 20 presidential poll.
The grouping wants the MPR to choose Mr Wahid over frontrunner Megawati Sukarnoputri and President Bacharuddin Habibie, Golkar's candidate, but faces growing opposition on a number of fronts. Mr Wahid leads Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, the 40- million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama.
A significant point about the election of Mr Rais to MPR Speaker is that a vote was required, and was conducted by secret ballot.
On a separate front, the fact that Mr Rais – former leader of the Muhammadiyah Muslim organisation – went to kiss Mr Wahid shows how well these two former rivals are now getting along politically.
Their ability to work together, as seen when Mr Wahid lobbied for Mr Rais' victory, poses a direct threat to Ms Megawati's claim to the presidency. Her own candidate for MPR Speaker lost to a combination of Muslim groups and Golkar.
Ms Megawati yesterday warned the MPR not to create a "distortion" by failing to reflect the results of the June 7 general election.
Speaking after the swearing in of Mr Rais, Ms Megawati said that, "with all the [Indonesian] people have done for their sovereignty", failure by the MPR session to reflect the results of the election would "bring about a distortion" – alluding to possible protests by her supporters. She did not elaborate.
"It's a consequence of her own inaction since the general election," said a political insider, expressing a widespread view. "She never responded to Amien Rais' gestures, so she lost him and lost his influence. It seems to make things harder for Mega, unless there's some very deep Javanese plot going on which we can't imagine," a political analyst said.
"It also seems that if this [Rais' victory] was the result of collusion between Golkar and the Muslims, then maybe Mr Habibie is not as weak as we thought.
"Also, with Matori Abdul Djalil [from PKB, National Awakening Party] and Ginandjar Kartasasmita [from Golkar] now as Vice-Speakers of the MPR, that means they are out of the presidential race too."
Regardless of what happens next, which no one is predicting, the message from the new MPR is that whoever becomes president will face a feisty parliament and a concomitant lessening of power.
"This is good news from a democratic perspective," said the insider. "So we'll see if this will also materialise during the presidential election."
Mr Habibie said yesterday he was ready to deliver to the MPR his accountability speech outlining his performance and achievements.