People's Power — page 3

Speeding back to his helicopter, Wiranto, who has missed lunch because of his tight schedule, suddenly has an inspiration. The entire 15-car convoy screeches to a halt in the middle of the road, and Wiranto and a local party official sit down at a roadside noodle stall built of bamboo and thatch. There are handshakes, even kisses. ("He kissed me here and here, he actually kissed me," squeals plump Ida to her friends, pointing to her cheeks.) Soon, the crowd of 30 villagers is laughing appreciatively as Wiranto cracks jokes between mouthfuls of beef noodles. An aide overpays grandly, and the convoy, which has blocked the road for 10 minutes, roars off again, leaving behind a smiling, waving group of villagers and the stall owner dancing an impromptu jig and waving his 200,000 rupiah ($21) in the air above his head.

Wiranto has steely good looks and can draw on the formidable war chest of Golkar, the Suharto-era holdover party that won the largest share of votes in the April elections and boasts the best grassroots machinery in the country. But a chief reason he trails Yudhoyono is the human-rights cloud still hovering over him. "I don't know about [Wiranto]," says Agus, a villager who lives near the noodle stall at which Wiranto stopped. "He seems a nice man. But I've read in the newspaper about his background. I haven't made up my mind."

The undecided voter is perhaps Megawati's only chance of re-election. Her advisers are still in shock at just how far and how fast their once seemingly Teflon-coated candidate has plummeted. Pundits once wondered whether anyone could give Megawati, 57, a run for her money, so unique was her combination of nationwide recognition and the fanatical loyalty she has received as the daughter of the country's founding father, Sukarno. But the President has seemed unable to recover from the twin surprises of her party's disastrous showing in the April parliamentary election (it lost about a quarter of its seats) and her own precipitously declining popularity. Megawati has floundered badly since the beginning of her campaign, alternately appearing testy and uninterested in fighting for a job that was always hers to lose.

	She's got to say, 'I've done my best, but I've made mistakes, I've disappointed you, I want to prove that I can change, that I can listen to you.' —RIZAL MALLARANGENG,  speechwriter for Megawati

She has made a belated attempt to change her style, recently holding a strained press conference at which her answers were brief and sometimes oblique, and for the first time in her presidency granting numerous interviews to the local media. Megawati has also announced a sudden string of policy initiatives. One example: a pledge to create 13 million new jobs, which analysts say will require a near doubling of the country's economic growth rate. She also promised to give a 15% pay rise and a 13th month of salary to each of the country's 3.6 million civil servants every year for the next five years. (That announcement, which would have cost billions of dollars, drew a rapid backpedaling from one of the President's ministers, Laksamana Sukardi, who said that the pay hikes would not be automatic but based on merit.) While the President's sudden flurry of activity after years of somnolence have had little impact on her low standing in the opinion polls, she may yet be saved—in this round of voting, at least. Should Megawati hold off Wiranto, she will have close to three months to woo back supporters she has lost. "Anything can happen during such a long period," says political scientist and Megawati speechwriter Rizal Mallarangeng, who compares Yudhoyono's current popularity to a stock-market bubble. "You know that at some point it's going to burst, but you don't know when."

External observers and Megawati's own supporters alike know that the President's chances of retaining her job depend far more on how she behaves than on her opponents' actions. "She's almost indifferent," says one close adviser, who adds that Megawati may simply be not hungry enough to win another term. To regain momentum, the President will have to reach out to the ordinary Indonesians who formed the bedrock of her past support. Says Rizal: "She's got to say, 'I've done my best, but I've made mistakes, I've disappointed you, I want to prove that I can change, that I can listen to you.'"

Listening is the strategy the front runner is adopting. In the fishing village of Kakap, a group of residents stand on the jetty, discussing Yudhoyono's visit. Fisherman Syarif Abubakar says he was impressed that the candidate bothered to go to their village to hear their problems. Kinanto, another fisherman, agrees, noting that although nearly two-thirds of the locals voted for Golkar in April, that doesn't mean they'll vote for its nominee, Wiranto, this time. On the other hand, he adds to a murmur of assent from the others, it doesn't mean they'll vote for Yudhoyono, either. "Of course, we are happy with anyone who makes the effort to come and visit us," says Kinanto. "But what happens when we vote is secret." And in that one sentence, you can hear Indonesians discovering the power of democracy.

With reporting by Zamira Loebis and Jason Tedjasukmana/Jakarta

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