Earlier this week, as the first election results trickled in, The Return of Golkar would have sounded like an improbable horror film to leaders of Indonesia's pro-reform movement, as they rejoiced in an early surge by opposition parties.
But yesterday as the count from Monday's poll climbed painstakingly to 10 per cent, Indonesia's ruling Golkar Party showed signs of coming back from the dead. It is now running second to Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), the opposition party led by Ms Megawati Sukharnoputri, according to unofficial projections.
Golkar leaders predict that they can cling to power by forming a coalition with the smaller Islamic parties which do not want a woman president and which reject Ms Megawati's pluralist approach, and with the backing of most of the 238 non-elected members of the 700-member electoral college which will choose the next president in November.
A coalition led by Ms Megawati is still the expected outcome, but the prospect of a Golkar comeback is sending tremors through Indonesia. It could create a dangerous backlash from an electorate which associates Golkar with the corruption and mismanagement of the 32-year era of disgraced President Suharto, according to international election monitors.
They say that such a development could well be interpreted by people as the stealing of the presidency. Golkar, which has nominated President B.J. Habibie for a second term, is so unpopular in some urban areas that supporters dare not flaunt its yellow colours, but with its organisation and resources it still can heavily influence the vote in rural areas.
There have been reports of vote-buying and intimidation. One international election monitor said yesterday he had heard of a case in Jakarta when women were told they would be raped if they did not vote for Golkar.
Such allegations are hard to verify, but the perception of vote-rigging could lead to new unrest, observers said. At 5 p.m. yesterday the unofficial count, which is running ahead of the official tally, indicated that PDI-P had 35 per cent of the vote, compared to 21 per cent for Golkar and 13 per cent for the opposition National Awakening Party (PKB).
This could give Ms Megawati's party 140 seats in the 500-seat parliament, and Golkar 100, enough to form the core of a winning coalition. Official figures put PDI-P in front with nearly 40 per cent of the vote and Golkar third with 16 per cent.
"I think we can form a coalition with any party we feel has the same platform and which is willing to have President Habibie as their president," said the Golkar party treasurer, Mr Fadel Muhammad. Opposition leaders were reluctant to contemplate Golkar's return to power, and suggested that it could only do so by engineering the count. "I do not think Golkar will win," said Ms Matori Djalil, chairman of the PKB.
"I am sure if Golkar suddenly surpassed PDI-P, a lot of people would question it, not just nationwide but internationally. It is something impossible. . . I am sure there must be some engineering."
Indonesia needed to break from the corruption of the past, warned a political commentator, Wimar Witoelar, who said: "We are all afraid of Golkar, and who they represent, being resurrected from the grave."
Meanwhile the count continued at an excruciatingly slow pace, with the election commission predicting yesterday that it would be June 21st before they could produce a certifiable result.
The Jakarta media made much yesterday of the story of one returning officer in Jakarta who took the ballot boxes hostage because he had not been paid. Even after three days of counting, only 7 per cent of votes have been collated in the capital, Jakarta.
"The cause of the slowness is clumsiness, lack of training, confusion," said the European Union chief observer, Mr John Morgan. In Jakarta's Kebon Kacang district the wrong ballot papers were
used in Monday's poll, forcing the vote to be repeated.
In another case, party witnesses turned up to approve a local result, but the forms they needed to sign were locked in a sealed box, so they left and had to be recalled. There have been very few cases of deliberate vote-tampering, however.
The electoral commission head, Mr Rudini, insisted the count was not behind schedule, but he alarmed international monitors by announcing at a press conference late yesterday that local officials could rerun the election in their districts if they believed there were irregularities; an offer which if taken at face value could cause even more chaos.