INDONESIA A NEWS

A decade ago, Indonesia was often written off by analysts as unstable and perilously close to being dismembered piece by fractious piece in the wake of the tragedy in East Timor and ethnic and religious tensions throughout the vast archipelago. But heading into national elections scheduled for April 9, its democracy seems to be in pretty good shape 11 years after rioting and economic meltdown forced out former President Suharto, the strongman who ran the country for 32 years. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the retired general who took power in national elections in 2004 on an anticorruption ticket, has considerably solidified his position. In 2004, his Democratic Party was a relatively minor force that forged an uncomfortable coalition with the Golkar Party and its chairman, Jusuf Kalla, who became Yudhoyono's vice president. Recent polls (which can be notoriously unreliable), however, have the Democratic Party with nearly a quarter of the electorate, if the Indonesian Survey

With its crumbling infrastructure, lack of a reliable mass transit system, and labyrinthine urban geography, Indonesia's capital of Jakarta was already plagued with some of the worst traffic conditions in the world. As political parties' roll out their spirited campaigns ahead of next month's legislative elections, Jakartans are girding themselves for more gridlock. The campaigns are an emerging democratic ritual that seem to assume the greater inconvenience inflicted on voters, the more electoral support a candidate will win. The election campaigns, which are characterized by raucous rallies, corteges of motorcyclists bearing party banners and lively speeches given by candidates' supporters, are failing to address the nation's substantive policy issues. The politics of personality and pomp are among the signs of Indonesia's political immaturity, despite nearly a decade of democratic rule and process. For the country's 38 national political parties, campaign

For all the global concern that Indonesia is increasingly in the thrall of fundamentalist Islam, a huge number of its 220 million-odd citizens have greeted the implementation of the country's strict anti-pornography law with typical Indonesian civil disobedience. They have largely ignored it. The jaipongan, the swaying, sensuous Javanese dance that kicked off the concerns of the bluenose brigade, appears to be going on as it always has despite a recent warning by the governor of West Java that it violates the porn law and the dancers had better stop shaking their booties with traditional gusto. Many bars and karaoke joints in Jakarta - often owned by police and generals remain filled with eager prostitutes, scores of scantily-clad "massage" girls and the odd go-go dancer stripped down and oiled up. The famed dangdut music, a blend of Arab, Indian and Javanese rhythms involving sensual lyrics and fast rotating buttocks, is still going strong. Curiously, even some conservat