Leader emerges in Indonesia poll
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- With around two-thirds of the nation's vote now counted, Indonesia's Golkar party is emerging as the frontrunner to lead a new government.
Golkar, the party of former strongman President Suharto, has won nearly 21 percent of the votes counted so far, edging out President Megawati Sukarnoputri's ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) which has secured just under 20 percent of the ballots.
Running third is the party of another ex-president, Abdurrahman Wahid's National Awakening Party with 12.6 percent, according to official figures released Tuesday.
Despite Golkar's likely victory in the House of Representatives, it has failed so far to match its performance in the 1999 poll when it won 22 percent.
PDI-P has suffered an even worse slump compared with its 34 percent in 1999.
That outcome does not augur well for Sukarnoputri's July 5 bid to win a second term as president.
So far, eight days after voting began in the sprawling archipelago, 82.4 million votes, out of a potential total of 147 million, have been counted.
A final result from the world's most populous Muslim nation, however, could be some days away.
Two remote districts in the restive Papua province have yet to hold their polls due to the late arrival of ballot papers and voting apparatus.
In the meantime, parties are holding alliance talks and jockeying to form potential coalitions ahead of July's presidential campaign.
Former chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is the most popular choice for president, followed by Megawati, according to opinion polls.
But other leaders of some of the 24 parties that contested the parliamentary poll are also planning to run, suggesting the presidential field could be crowded come July.
"I am here and I am still running for president, God willing," Amien Rais, speaker of Indonesia's supreme legislature and head of the moderate Muslim-oriented National Mandate Party (PAN) told a news conference on Monday, Reuters reports.
PAN is currently running seventh, with 6.46 percent of the vote.
However, opinion polls show Rais is one of the more serious challengers for the presidency, partly based on his former leadership of Indonesia's second largest moderate Muslim group, the Muhammadiyah.
