Do Yudhoyono and Kalla make a "Dream Team"?

Producer: Yvonne Gomez
First broadcast: 19 April 04, Radio Singapore International

Indonesia's public welfare minister, Yusuf Kalla, has said that he will run alongside presidential candidate, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, as his vice-president.

Both Yudhoyono and Kalla are popular public figures and there has been speculation that their pairing will adversely affect President Megawati Sukarnoputri's re-election chances.

Yvonne Gomez spoke to Dr Arief Budiman, Head of the Indonesian Programme at the University of Melbourne. She first asked him how successful the Yudhoyono-Kalla combination will be.

AB: The possibility of them winning the election is slim because I don’t think they have a very strong political base. But Yusuf Kalla has no other choice also because if he stays with Golkar, he may not become anything. I think their competitors from Golkar will mainly be Akbar Tandjung and Wiranto, maybe. The combination is quite good but if you’re talking about its success, I don’t think there’ll be very much.

A lot of reports have shown that Yudhoyono is very, very popular, and so is Kalla. So do you not think this combination would be quite successful?

AB: Yusuf Kalla has his mass base in South Sulawesi. Bambang Yudhoyono is popular among the urban intellectuals in the big cities. But the majority of Indonesian voters are in the villages. So both of them are popular, like for Yudhoyono, but it’s a relatively tiny group of educated people in the cities, compared to the people in the village. So that’s why I think, eventhough Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is very popular, this may not be reflected in the votes.

What do you think a Yudhoyono-Kalla team mean for Megawati’s re-election chances?

AB: It depends on who Megawati is going take as a running mate. She’s having a problem now because she’s being isolated, especially since Golkar has emerged as the winner in these elections, so Golkar may not want to accept the position of Vice-President. So Megawati’s really in trouble now, not because of Kalla and Yudhoyono, but because of the political situation now in Indonesia. So Megawati cannot run for Vice-President, and I don’t think she will do that. She can’t also try to have a coalition with a Muslim party because basically the Muslim parties do not accept women as presidents. So she’s in trouble because she doesn’t have a running mate.

So if you don’t think that the Yudhoyono and Yusuf Kalla combination will work, and neither will Megawati and her yet-to-be known vice-president will work, what do you think will be the outcome of the presidential elections on July 5th?

AB: It’s difficult to predict now, because we don’t know what the coalitions are, so it depends on whether Golkar is clever enough to form good combinations with the smaller parties. There is a possibility that Golkar will work together with Yudhoyono. It’s a slim chance, but a real one. Or, Golkar may run with an Islamic party. Akbar Tandjung, when he was a student, he was part of a Muslim student organisation, so he has good relations with the Islamic group. But the problem is the Islamic party there. It’s not difficult to unify them, especially with leaders like Gus Dur and Amien Rais. So at the moment, it’s really difficult to tell but I think Golkar has a better chance than Megawati, to form a coalition, either with Yudhoyono or an Islamic party.

Why do you say that Golkar has a better chance than Megawati’s PDI-P?

AB: Because they are more flexible, in that sense, and more acceptable to other groups that exist now, like the Islamic group, and Yudhoyono, while Megawati is difficult. With Golkar, the problem for Megawati, again, is the question of running as president of vice-president, as I mentioned earlier. And with Yudhoyono, Megawati already had a problem with him. With the Islamic parties, it’s difficult to work together. So Megawati has many things restricting her actions, whereas Golkar has free rein to do what it likes.