John McBeth, Jakarta – The launch of East Timor First Lady Kirsty Sword Gusmao's autobiography was in full swing in a Jakarta store when a woman covered head-to-toe in a white robe slipped into the front row of seats and grabbed the microphone.

For the next few minutes, Uga, the wife of Indonesian presidential candidate Wiranto, talked, telling the surprised audience that her husband had learned a lot about democracy from President Xanana Gusmao.

Then, just as abruptly, she left. The unscheduled June 8 performance, aimed at showing her husband in a favourable light, was an ample reminder of the baggage the Golkar party candidate is carrying as he confronts his two main rivals, former Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and President Megawati Sukarnoputri, in the lead-up to the July 5 opening round of Indonesia's first direct presidential election.

The retired general has rejected charges that he should accept part of the responsibility for the bloodshed that accompanied East Timor's August 1999 vote for independence or for violence that swept other parts of Indonesia during 1998-2000, when he was concurrently defence minister and armed-forces chief.

The next day, a dark-suited Yudhoyono appeared before a business lunch in a downtown Jakarta club. No one asked this former top officer about his military career or how, as assistant chief of staff for socio-political and territorial affairs from 1998 until his retirement in 2000, he managed to avoid being tainted by the dramatic events that marked Indonesia's struggle with a free-falling economy and a difficult political transition. Instead, for 75 minutes, the seemingly Teflon-coated candidate sketched out a comprehensive picture of what he would do if he wins the presidency.

With most political analysts ruling out a majority decision in the first round, the two ex-generals are now considered favourites to go head-to-head if a run-off vote is needed on September 20. One independent poll shows Yudhoyono with a 30% lead over both Wiranto and Megawati, and another has him nearing the magical 50% mark that would dispense with the need for a second ballot.

But Indonesia is entering new territory with this election and no one is sure how much faith to place in the forecasts. In a country where the military has had a long history of direct influence over national politics, there is considerable opposition among students and other activists to an ex-general as Indonesia's sixth president.

But that appears to be more than matched by a yearning among many voters for firmer leadership after five years of often haphazard rule. That applies particularly in rural areas where patriarchal traditions still run deep and human rights are not necessarily an issue.

Wiranto, however, is working at a disadvantage. During a recent private meeting with senior journalists, Yudhoyono said that Wiranto requested a meeting with him days after the April 5 general election, where Yudhoyono's greenhorn Democratic Party captured a surprising 7.4% of the vote. There, he claims, the retired four-star general sought to pull rank on his former subordinate by asking him to drop out of the presidential race.

"These are different times," Yudhoyono quoted himself as telling Wiranto. "Indonesia is now a democracy and we all have the right to engage in politics." Wiranto and his aides could not be reached for comment.

Since then, Wiranto's campaign advertisements often show past news footage of Yudhoyono standing deferentially behind Wiranto at official functions. But that's about as far as the mud-slinging has gone. Indeed, as the candidates criss-cross the archipelago, they have largely avoided attacking each other. Confrontational and even opposition politics are still frowned on in Indonesia.

Just how Wiranto's track record as adjutant to disgraced former President Suharto and during his later days in the military leadership will affect his election chances is difficult to judge. But he has a lot to live down, including the violence in mid-1998 that triggered Suharto's downfall, the killing of eight students during a protest in Jakarta in November 1999, the East Timor blood-letting in 1999 and the sectarian violence that left thousands dead in the Moluccan islands between 1999 and 2001.

East Timor won't register with most voters. Even if they may not have agreed with the methods, most Indonesians still feel they had every right to try to preserve the country's territorial integrity.

Although not all of it can be laid at Wiranto's door, middle-class urban voters may be more turned off by the domestic bloodshed that occurred on the general's watch and the suspicion that he represents a return to the past. "Wiranto has a weak comprehension of democracy," notes a former general who served on his staff. "He has a trademark of using militaristic ways to achieve political purposes. It's that sort of behaviour that will worry voters."

Some of that concern stems from his choice of two retired generals, Suaidi Marasabessy and Fachrul Razi, as his campaign managers – both of them hardline rightists linked to militant Islamic groups. Equally troubling to human-rights advocates: the apparent background role being played by former intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim, Wiranto's point man in East Timor in 1999.

Yudhoyono, for his part, has often been criticized for being indecisive – a serious failing if Indonesia is to drag itself out of its current economic morass. "Bambang was never in a No. 1 position," notes one senior Wiranto adviser. "If he had, he would have had bruises too. What he's doing now is riding on perceptions."

The adviser's verdict on the presidential race so far: Wiranto is undervalued and the only way he can go is up. Yudhoyono is overvalued and the only way he can go is down.

Losing momentum is something the Yudhoyono camp fears. Analysts credit television and the candidate's high-profile role in the cabinets of the past two presidents for his creeping rise in popularity. But they still question whether he has the depth of support that the polls suggest.

In the end, the main battleground will be vote-rich Java, which accounts for 60% of the national electorate. The April election gave Yudhoyono firm footholds in Jakarta, the Sumatran provincial capitals of Medan and Palembang, Semarang and Surabaya in Central and East Java, and Banjarmarsin in Central Kalimantan. Urban voters clearly like him because he is seen to represent a break from the past.

The latest International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) tracking poll, which has become the yardstick for the campaign, also showed that he can count on votes across the board from both nationalist and religious-based parties.

While Wiranto and Megawati have done well only with their own parties, Yudhoyono has drawn support from 31% of respondents each from Golkar and presidential candidate Amien Rais' National Mandate Party, 18.2% from Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) and 25.8% from the United Development Party of the final presidential candidate, Vice-President Hamzah Haz. Nearly 28% of respondents from the National Awakening Party, the political arm of the 40 million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Muslim organization, also said they would vote for Yudhoyono.

That suggests that in choosing NU figures as vice-presidential running mates, Golkar and PDI-P may be dealing with an even more divided membership than they thought. Certainly, around Yudhoyono's birthplace in the southwest corner of East Java, NU's stronghold, there is little doubt who villagers intend to vote for.

The IFES poll, released on May 31 before the election campaign started, also has Yudhoyono ahead in all age groups. The figures are impressive because of his apparent appeal among younger constituents: 44% of respondents under 25, 48% of those in the 25-34 age group and 44% of those between 35 and 44. It only begins to slip among older and illiterate voters, many of whom hanker for the father-knows-best days when subsidies protected them from the real world.

A beauty contest

Just as important for Yudhoyono are the implications that can be drawn from the April election. While Golkar and PDI-P remain the two main blocks in the new 550-seat House of Representatives, the huge hits they took on April 5 provide a strong pointer that political machines may have only a marginal impact on what, after all, is a simple beauty contest.

Some analysts also question the continuing influence of local officials and religious leaders as voters begin to get a sense of their empowerment in the post-Suharto era. "It's an uphill battle," acknowledges former Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman, a member of Wiranto's campaign team. "But the electorate is fickle. Judging from the general election, you get the sense the public is looking for normalcy, but the gap between the two elections is such that this trend might not hold. If Wiranto is going to win, he is going to have to get newly elected Golkar parliamentarians into the game."

Maybe. Well-placed party sources say one of the campaign's major difficulties has been meshing Wiranto's campaign-team members with Golkar's party machinery.