Indonesian president’s party wins election

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The secular party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has scored a victory in Indonesia’s parliamentary elections, but will likely be forced to govern with several Islamic parties after a political feud with his main coalition partner.

The final tallies, released late Saturday, give the reform-minded leader a boost before he runs for re-election in July. His Democratic Party garnered 20.8 percent of the popular vote in the April 9 election, tripling its showing from 2004.

Yudhoyono’s party now has 148 seats in the 560-seat parliament and without a majority, he will have to team up with other parties to push through much-needed economic and institutional reforms.

But a decision by Golkar party Chairman and Vice President Jusuf Kalla to run for president has caused a rift between the former coalition partners. Yudhoyono is now expected to form an alliance with four Islamic parties — even though they did poorly in the polls. Their support fell from 39 percent in 2004 to 24 percent last month.

“Such a partnership would make sense,” said Arbi Sanit, an analyst from the University of Indonesia, noting that Yudhoyono and the Islamists both share anti-graft platforms and champion the poor. “It’s an alliance that could both strengthen his hand in parliament and convince people on his ‘clean government’ commitment.”

Islamists saw their support plummet last month partly because they’ve been seen as intolerant after pushing though unpopular laws banning everything from smoking to yoga and imposing unpopular sharia-based laws in some regions.

Most Indonesians practice a more moderate form of their faith despite signs that they are becoming more religious. Women are seen proudly wearing headscarves, Islamic book fairs are packed, and business executives are taking their employees on religious retreats.

The results from last month’s poll were widely expected and mirrored unofficial, early tallies.

Golkar, the former political machine of longtime dictator Suharto, got 14.45 percent; the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle headed by former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who is also expected to join the presidential race, 14 percent; and the Islamic-based Prosperous and Justice Party, 7.8.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, emerged from decades of dictatorship in 1998 when Gen. Suharto was swept from power in a wave of pro-democracy street protests. With his ouster came reforms that freed the media, saw a vastly improved human rights record, and tackled graft.

Yudhoyono — who became the country’s first democratically elected president in 2004 — remains popular, in part because he does not have strong adversaries. He is widely expected to win a second, five-year term when voters go to the polls on July 8.