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| Southeast Asia |
| Indonesians Vote |
| 2009-04-09 |
| April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, votes for a new parliament today with pre-election surveys showing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democrat party likely to win the highest percentage of seats. More than 171 million voters have five hours to cast their ballots to elect legislators at the national and regional levels in polling stations spread across the world’s largest archipelago. Polls opened at 7 a.m. local time and close at noon. “This nation doesn’t want to lose momentum” in developing its democracy, said Josef Krisnadi, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. “The preparations weren’t perfect, but it’ll still be a legitimate election.” This is the third election since the fall of former President Suharto, who was forced out of office in 1998 after ruling the country for 32 years. All 560 seats in the more- important lower house of parliament are up for grabs in today’s election, as well as 132 seats in the upper house. Thirty-eight parties are fielding more than 11,000 candidates. Yudhoyono’s Democrat party was favored by 26.6 percent of respondents in an April poll taken by the Indonesian Survey Institute. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, led by former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, was second in the survey with 14.5 percent, while Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s Golkar party was chosen by 13.7 percent. |
| Posted by:Steve White |