Indonesia's ruling Golkar party said yesterday it would keep President B.J. Habibie as its candidate for the presidential election in November, despite earlier suggestions it might reconsider his nomination.
Mr Habibie's nomination is widely viewed as a poor political move. He is unpopular and is closely linked with his mentor, former president Suharto, who quit in disgrace last year.
In May, Golkar's deputy chairman, Mr Marzuki Darusman, suggested Mr Habibie's nomination might be reconsidered after the June 7th general election - the nation's first free vote in 44 years.
With less than 60 per cent of votes counted, support for Golkar is at a record low, 19 per cent, well behind populist opposition leader Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party - Struggle (PDI-P). Ms Megawati remains the country's most talked-about politician - but she is also its most silent public figure. Her virtual disappearance since the June 7th parliamentary election, which her party has certainly won, is driving her political allies to distraction and has her critics questioning whether she really is presidential material.
"There's no coalition-building. . . It's a nightmare for us, we don't know what to do," said a member of one of the parties trying to forge a parliamentary alliance with her party.
Her aides insist Ms Megawati's aloofness arises from her sense of correctness, not wanting to speak out until the exasperatingly slow vote count from the election is over. This week, the tally was still less than 60 per cent, with a third going to the PDI-P.
A final count is now promised for July 21st, though some analysts doubt even that deadline will be met.
PDI-P formed a loose alliance with two other opposition parties - the Nation Awakening Party (PKB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN) - before the election but has refused to court coalition partners openly until the counting is over.
The daughter of Indonesia's charismatic founding president Sukarno, Ms Megawati is an unlikely icon for a democracy movement. She avoids public debate and rarely talks to the press. But her championing of the tens of millions of impoverished Indonesians has won her widespread support.
Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, whose PKB party is a key ally to Ms Megawati, recently suggested a role that would make her more a symbolic than an executive president.
Mr Harry Tjan Silalahi, political analyst with the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, agrees her popularity will make it difficult to deflect her from the presidency.
"She is rather fortunate that her opponent (President B.J.) Habibie is a dead horse. If there is a dark horse, it will be among her partners, not her opponents," he said.
Almost a quarter of all Indonesians, 49.5 million people, were estimated to be living in absolute poverty at the end of last December after the economic crisis hit the country, the Central Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. This is an increase of 120 per cent from its previous estimate, in February 1996, of 22.5 million people.