Norimitsu Onishi, Jakarta – The five men and one woman vying to become president or vice president in Indonesia's election on Wednesday are familiar faces. All but one made their names during Suharto's 32-year military rule, which ended more than a decade ago. Half of them, tellingly, are retired generals.
But after crisscrossing this archipelago for three weeks, the candidates wound up their campaigns over the weekend promising to shepherd the country into a new era. The election, only the second time Indonesians will directly choose their president, will take place after a three-day cooling-off period during which campaigning is banned.
Leading in the polls, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono played to his strengths by emphasizing the economic policies of his first term and the comforts of continuity.
"God willing, in the next five years, the world will say, 'Indonesia is something; Indonesia is rising,'" he said at a large rally on Saturday that paralyzed swaths of Jakarta, a testament both to his popularity and to this city's decaying infrastructure.
Emboldened by his Democratic Party's victory in April's parliamentary election, Mr. Yudhoyono has exhorted voters to give him a clear majority to avoid a runoff in September. His rivals, former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla, the current vice president, have already started talking darkly about rigged balloting, though without offering any evidence.
A smooth election on Wednesday would cap a successful turnaround for a country that earlier this decade was reeling from anti-Western terrorism, breakaway regions and Islamic extremism. Today, Indonesia – with the world's largest number of Muslims and its fourth-biggest population – is a stable democracy with an economy that has continued to grow solidly despite the global downturn.
Mr. Yudhoyono, 59, has gotten much of the credit. A stronger mandate, experts say, should allow him to push through more of the reforms needed to extract Indonesia from its history of kleptocratic rule.
A retired general from the Suharto era who is viewed as ethical, Mr. Yudhoyono had to form a coalition government in his first term with several other parties. His main coalition partner, Golkar, Suharto's party, chose as vice president Mr. Kalla, a businessman whose family business thrived during the Suharto years. Golkar officials are believed to have reined in some of the president's economic reforms and his popular anticorruption drive.
After his party's strong showing in April, however, Mr. Yudhoyono's party and Golkar ended their partnership. The president chose as his new vice-presidential running mate a respected, Wharton-educated central banker, Boediono, 66, who is not affiliated with any party and is the least known of the six candidates.
The campaign, including televised debates, barely addressed policy differences. The candidates said little beyond generalities at campaign events that were dominated by music and dancing, and often attended by paid supporters.
Mr. Kalla, 67, though the No. 2 in the current administration and not known for reformist credentials, tried to take credit for the successes of the past five years.
"I'm standing here to lead this country, to go 'faster, better,'" Mr. Kalla said at a rally in eastern Jakarta last Thursday, repeating his campaign's motto, which tried to capitalize on Mr. Yudhoyono's reputation for being indecisive and too cautious.
Mr. Kalla's running mate, Wiranto, 62, is a retired general who rose to prominence after serving as Suharto's personal aide. The United Nations accused him of human rights violations after his troops committed widespread abuses in East Timor in 1999.
The third retired general running in the election, Prabowo, 58, is Mrs. Megawati's vice-presidential running mate. Once married to one of Suharto's daughters, Prabowo was also implicated in several human rights violations in his capacity as a former commander of the special forces.
The presence of two retired generals with troubled pasts did not emerge as a campaign issue, a sign that there has been no full reckoning yet of the Suharto era.
The political marriage between Mr. Prabowo and Mrs. Megawati – leader of the opposition during Suharto's last years and the daughter of independent Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, who was ousted from power by Suharto – surprised few in Indonesia, where politics has traditionally been a fight for spoils.
During the campaign, Mrs. Megawati, who served as president between 2001 and 2004, often appeared aloof, preferring to cede the spotlight to Mr. Prabowo. Despite his vast wealth – Mr. Prabowo is the wealthiest candidate, with declared assets totaling more than $160 million – he has run on a populist message. He talked about empowering state-owned enterprises and renegotiating contracts with foreign companies operating here in the resources industry.
"We don't want to be a nation of errand boys," he said at a rally last week.
[Muktita Suhartono contributed reporting.]