Indonesia heads to polls

INDONESIA: Attractive folk dancers, bouncy young pop singers and cash handouts have been the hallmarks of Indonesia’s experiment in democracy as the archipelago counts down to elections on Thursday.

The third national legislative vote since the fall of the 32-year Suharto military dictatorship in 1998 is Indonesia’s latest chance to prove that its 11-year-old “Reformasi” movement of democratic change is on track.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s centrist Democratic Party is leading most of the opinion polls, ahead of ex-president Megawati Sukarnoputri’s Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Golkar, Suharto’s former ruling party. Support for Islamic parties has been on the decline in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, although they are still likely to be important players in post-election coalition jostling.

Jakarta, Monday, AFP