Dan Eaton, Jakarta – Slumped on a couch and clutching his walking cane, Indonesian presidential hopeful Abdurrahman Wahid, one of the country's most revered Islamic figures, is clearly annoyed.

Campaign time is ticking away as April 5 legislative elections approach and he is facing a barrage of what he considers irrelevant questions from a foreign journalist.

Terrorism, he insists, is not an issue in the world's most populous Muslim nation. Neither is Islam. "You haven't asked me about the economy," complains the blind, 64-year-old cleric, who wants another shot at the presidency after being dumped for incompetence from the country's top job by parliament less than three years ago.

"Islam is the religion of the people, yes, but not more than that." Wahid's analysis may surprise many.

Since incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri came to power in mid-2001, hundreds of people have died in Indonesia as a result of bombs planted by Islamic militants and everyone – from Jakarta's governor to the US government – says fresh attacks may be coming, timed to coincide with the parliamentary ballot and the first ever presidential election in July.

The Bali nightclub bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people, dozens of them foreign tourists, still rank alongside the recent train bombings in Spain as the most deadly acts of terror anywhere in the world since the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

So why in Indonesia – a key ally in Washington's war on terror – ways to deal with the country's murderous militant fringe not taken up as a major issue by most candidates? The reasons, say political analysts, are partly to be found in the culture of a very young democracy, and partly in an unwillingness among the 24 secular and Muslim parties competing to upset an overwhelmingly Muslim electorate.

"In the 1999 elections, Muslim-oriented parties together cornered about 44 percent of the vote," said Damien Kingsbury, an Indonesia expert at Australia's Deakin University.

"Presidential aspirants will probably need to court the leaders of some of the Islamic parties to make up a coalition to achieve the presidency. They don't want to alienate them."

Rice and jobs

While Megawati is seen as likely to keep her job, the race could be tight, especially if her Indonesia Democratic Party-Struggle loses its parliamentary majority to Golkar, former autocratic president Suharto's long-time political vehicle, amid a growing perception democracy has failed to meet expectations.

With as much as 40 percent of the country's 220 million people unemployed or underemployed, for many there are far more pressing issues than terror.

A survey in December by the US-based International Republican Institute showed that by far the most important election issue for Indonesia was the economy, which in terms of growth lags behind its Asian peers. Only about two percent ranked security as the main problem facing the nation.

"Terrorism has never been a priority in Indonesia," says Sidney Jones, the International Crisis Group's Jakarta-based representative. Most Indonesians think far more about the economy than terror. "They think about the economy in terms of the prices they have to pay for rice, electricity and other basic goods."

And with anti-American sentiment running at high levels as a result of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, too much talk of the war on terror could damage a party's chances.

Personalities and patronage

Even if there was an attack similar to the Madrid train bombings ahead of the polls, it wouldn't result in a change of government, said Jones. "It couldn't happen here. You don't have an opposition with policies that are different from the government," said Jones. "The personality and patronage issues would still be the major factors driving the parties."

Next month's polls will be only the second time Indonesians have participated in a democratic vote since Suharto was ousted from 32 years in power by a popular uprising in 1998.

"In Indonesia, the parties are not ideological, the population is not sophisticated and it's just about dividing political spoils," says Wimar Witoelar, a former presidential spokesman for Wahid and now a prominent television commentator.

"Here the real decisions are taken by elites ... It's a very primitive, primordial, mass-based system and no issue has enough strength to come to the surface."