Indonesia parties manoeuvre as vote count drags on

A week after Indonesia's parliamentary elections, politicians and presidential hopefuls have started horse-trading to form coalitions ahead of the country's presidential election in July.

With more than half the votes from the April 5 parliamentary election counted, Golkar, the former political vehicle of ex-autocrat Suharto is running neck and neck with President Megawati Sukarnoputri's party.

Yesterday, Golkar was just ahead with 20.62 per cent to Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) with 20.10 per cent, based on almost 80 million counted votes out of an electorate of 147 million people.

Former chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is the most 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 said they wanted to run the world's most populous Muslim nation, indicating the presidential field on July 5 could be crowded.

"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 yesterday.

PAN is running seventh, with 6.44 per cent 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.

"We give our full moral support to Amien Rais to run as president," deputy chief of the 30-million-strong Muhammadiyah, Din Syamsuddin, told the same news conference.

One PAN leader said the party had been holding talks with other party officials to discuss a possible running mate for Rais in the presidential election.

A successful pair will need to win more than 50 per cent of the July 5 vote, otherwise there will be a second round.

Hasyim Muzadi, head of Indonesia's largest Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which has 40 million members, said he was being courted, although he did not say by whom.