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Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Reason for HopeMonday's election in Indonesia (to select a parliament, and winnow down the presidential candidates) is being called "history's biggest one-day vote" by Reuters and some other outfits. And it went okay. No fundamentalist sweep, no explosions; early results show an erosion of support for the corrupt ineffectual Megawati Sukarnoputri (who faces re-election in July) and a surprise boost for General Susilo Bambang Yudyohono, a small-party underdog who may be the least bad of all the possible presidential candidates. Nothing I read three months ago predicted he would be a serious contender.
The ugly part is that corrupt former tyrant Suharto's party, Golkar, may be gaining ground. Or, as one watcher put it in the Reuters piece:
"Actually, Golkar has not reaped any gain... What they have done is maintain [their] level."
But then, Indonesia has one of the most corrupt governments on the planet. These results are, in general, really not all that spectacularly bad.
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
2:00 AM
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