Indonesia Polls Favor Former General

As Presidential Vote Nears, Front-Runner Woos Public With Songs, Security

SIANTAR, Indonesia -- The strains of a hearty tenor filtered out from behind the closed door of hotel room 103. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the front-runner in Indonesia's presidential race, was rehearsing a tune he would sing that morning to voters in this highland town in western Indonesia.

"I know you love me, so you will choose me," the thickset former general could be heard crooning in the local Batak dialect, practicing the lyrics he learned minutes earlier, just as he has been practicing for the country's top job for the last several years.

In an interview, the man popularly known by his initials, SBY, chortled when a reporter asked about his singing. Like many Indonesians and another presidential rival, he said he just likes to sing. He always has, including when he played bass guitar in a high school band.

Soon, if the polls are correct, he could be facing a larger audience. According to several reputable national opinion surveys, the retired Army general and former cabinet minister in the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri has far outpaced his former boss in the running for the country's first direct presidential election.

Yudhoyono, who was Megawati's coordinating minister for security and politics, is surging in the polls at a time when Indonesians, after six years of a turbulent transition to democracy, are yearning for law and order, and for more and better jobs. Critics say he is too cautious and indecisive. But Yudhoyono says he is thorough, intent on hearing all sides of an issue.

So commanding is his lead over his four rivals that he has dared to hope for an outright majority of votes on July 5. If he falls short, a run-off between the top two choices is slated for September.

If elected, Yudhoyono said his goal is to put Indonesia's "house back in order" after the 1998 ouster of President Suharto, which was followed by rising separatist and militant activity and a failure to establish effective law enforcement and judicial integrity.

His broad agenda, he added, is to maintain the unity and security of Indonesia, a diverse nation with a Muslim majority, and to revive an economy not growing fast enough to ease poverty and unable to attract significant foreign investment.

Memories of Suharto's military-backed authoritarian regime are fresh among Indonesians. Some warn about a reversal of democratic gains, with two former generals, Yudhoyono and former military commander in chief Gen. Wiranto, in the race.

Even some friends worry that Yudhoyono will be swayed by conservative advisers and will lack the boldness to carry out military reforms he helped initiate.

In 1998-99, he led a group of generals in writing a reform blueprint that stressed depoliticizing the military. The plan, only partially accomplished, included a proposal to end the military "dual function," a practice dating to 1958 in which, for instance, active duty military officers also held civilian government positions.

The military has given up some of its political role, for example, relinquishing its formerly guaranteed bloc of seats in parliament. But a key component, putting the armed forces under effective civilian control, has not been realized.

Yudhoyono dismissed fears that he would stray from the path of reform.

"I think it is going a little bit too far to connect my candidacy with a return of militarism," he said. If he is elected, he said, it would be "by the people, democratically."