INDONESIA A NEWS

The simultaneous suicide attacks on two of Jakarta's most exclusive hotels on July 17, which killed nine and injured 50, are part of Indonesia's continually evolving jihadi threat, according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, which monitors conflicts worldwide.The radical Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which gets much of the blame from the press and governments, still exists as an organisation, although it seems to have lost its sense of direction, the crisis group said in an extensive policy briefing produced last week. JI, the policy paper said, "has gone from being a hierarchical structure with cells in five countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia) to a largely Indonesian grouping with a loose system of territorial coordinators and some individual members elsewhere -- especially the Philippines. " The rising star is instead Noordin Mohammad Top, formerly a Malaysian bit player who fled to Indonesia in the wake of the ex

The Indonesian presidential election on July 8 seems likely to give Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono another five years in office. He is ahead of other candidates in opinion polls, and his Democratic Party emerged as the country's largest in the parliamentary elections in April. A high degree of normality and stability has returned to Indonesia after years of political and social turmoil. Only a decade ago, many feared that Indonesia would break up along ethnic lines and become a "Southeast Asian Yugoslavia." In the end, only East Timor went its own way. But that was a special case, according to the official line from Jakarta and also foreign governments. When Indonesia was proclaimed an independent state in 1945, it laid claims to all the territories of the former Dutch East Indies, which did not include the then-Portuguese colony on the eastern half of Timor island. It was invaded in 1975 and formally annexed by Indonesia the following year -- a move that was not recognized by

Indonesia's politicians and powerbrokers tentatively begin to cobble together a new ruling coalition, there is a great deal of optimism both here and abroad about the country's democratic future, much of it surrounding the personality of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the incumbent president and provisional winner of last week's polls. The country's first directly elected president in 2004, Yudhoyono this year became the only head of state in the post-Suharto reformasi era to serve a full term of office. Now, he is the first president in the same era to be democratically re-elected. So what do the historic polls say about the broader state of Indonesian democracy? Procedurally, Indonesia has shown that its institutions are capable of staging a largely free and fair election. The National Election Commission's (KPU) failure to register tens of millions of potential voters was certainly a problem, but its roots are deeper than just the KPU's competence. Runner-up and

Indonesia's 176m eligible voters face potential confusion in Wednesday's presidential election after a last-minute court decision to throw out the official voter roll because of complaints of missed or dead voters and double registrations.Officials said they would allow anyone with valid identity papers to cast ballots and cautioned that could cause some logistical problems as voters tried to figure out where to vote and what documents to present. Election authorities in the world's third largest democracy dismissed concerns about having insufficient ballot papers, as they were expecting turnout of about 75 per cent, down significantly from the last presidential poll in 2004.Some voters were ecstatic at Monday's ruling by the Constitutional Court, which threw out the official voter rolls after complaints that up to 45m people might have been disenfranchised by the General Election Commission's incomplete registration programme."I wasn't able to vote in the

Most polls suggest that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of the Democratic Party will be re-elected in next Wednesday's vote, after running a smooth campaign based on his economic policies and a popular anticorruption drive. Despite television debates, the personality- driven campaigns have focused little on differences over policies or ideas, except regarding the wearing of the jilbab.It is perhaps not surprising that the jilbab, the Islamic style of dress in which a woman covers her head and neck, has become an issue in a presidential campaign this year. Jilbab sales have been booming for three years across a country where women have traditionally gone unveiled, and where the meaning of wearing the jilbab - or not wearing one - remains fluid. The issue also cuts to a central, unresolved debate in Indonesia's decade-old democracy: the role of Islam in politics."It's the first time that the jilbab has become an issue in a presidential campaign in Indonesia," sai

The conviction on corruption charges of a close relative to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has significantly bolstered his graft-fighting credentials just weeks before presidential polls set for July 8. Former Bank of Indonesia governor Aulia Pohan, the father-in-law of Yudhoyono's son, was convicted and sentenced in mid-June to four-and-a-half years in prison on embezzlement charges. Some political analysts believe the timing of the conviction could be decisive for the Yudhoyono-Boediono ticket, which was already leading comfortably in most preliminary opinion polls. Those perceptions will have been strengthened by the conviction on Tuesday of ex-West Java governor Danny Setiwan on "collective corruption" charges, and the sentencing of a former supplier for the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, Erry Fuad, to over two years in prison for embezzling funds. Corruption issues have featured prominently in Yudhoyono's presidential race against former president M