JAKARTA's sophisticated set has a joke about why Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will win the presidential election next month - and it has nothing to do with his handling of the economy or his leadership skills.It's all about sex, and how to win the female vote. Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, who is going head-to-head with SBY for the top job on July 8, has the catchy campaign slogan "Faster! Better!" This attempts to underline the slow progress after five years of Dr Yudhoyono's careful hand, and to show Mr Kalla would leap out of the blocks to get things done. But the affable and considered Dr Yudhoyono, the wits point out, will have women falling over themselves to tick his box next month with his simple directive: "More! More!" Marital relations have been a key element of the campaigning, even if only as part of the noisy rhetoric of secondary groups such as the moderately Islamist Prosperous Justice Party.
This party declared its members were likely to favour the team of Mr Kalla and retired general Wiranto because their wives were known for wearing the Muslim jilbab headdress. Dr Yudhoyono's wife, Ani, is famous for her elegant coiffure. And with open campaigning having begun this week, after a razzle-dazzle Electoral Commission ceremony featuring all three candidates and each of their deputies, the focus is now more on style than substance. Former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, who throughout her political career has battled accusations she is not the sharpest knife in the box, came out punching on the prime-time television current affairs program Kick Andy last night. Asked how she could guarantee her nationalist economic policies would work, she answered: "If I weren't smart, why would Prabowo (her vice-presidential running mate, a retired general with a dubious but uninvestigated human rights record) have chosen me?" This was up there with Ms Megawati's greatest eyebrow-raiser. Asked last year how she expected to run the country with only a high school education, she said: "The Prophet (Mohammed) was a leader, and he didn't have a university degree either."
This week's opinion polls suggest Dr Yudhoyono and his running mate, economics professor Boediono, will win the election comfortably. The Indonesian Survey Circle predicted the incumbent would be returned with more than 63per cent of the vote, with Ms Megawati on 16.4 per cent and the hapless Kalla-Wiranto ticket getting just 5.9 per cent. That survey was particularly bad news for Ms Megawati, as it found that one of her strongest constituencies - the poorly educated - were inclined to support Dr Yudhoyono. Various organisations have made wildly differing election predictions, prompting allegations some were being paid to help particular tickets. But there is little doubt the aggressive campaign of Dr Yudhoyono's team, headed by the US-educated Mallarangeng brothers - Andi, Choel and Rizal, whose Fox Indonesia has adopted a Barack Obama-style grassroots push - is working.
The reception at Jakarta's Tanah Abang textiles market this week was evidence of that, with delighted shoppers - male and female - calling out to Dr Yudhoyono: "More! More
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