Getting Ready to Vote

For months the betting was evenly divided among foreigners in Djakarta that Indonesia's long-postponed first national election would be postponed still longer. For even an experienced government the problem might have seemed overpowering: to register an honest vote for more than 1,000 candidates, representing 172 parties, by 43 million voters who are more than 50% illiterate and speak some 200 different dialects, at 93,000 polling places in a primitive country that is 3,000 miles long and cut up into 3,000 islands. For the young (6 years), inexperienced Indonesian Republic, beset with a desperate economic crisis, five concurrent armed rebellions and a government only one month in office, the task might have seemed impossible.

But with the dedication and determination of people who had fought long and bitterly for the right to govern their own affairs, the Indonesians persisted. This week, from the crowded streets of Djakarta to the head-hunting regions of Borneo, Indonesians get their chance to elect their leaders.

Brother, Brother. To set up the elections, officials of the caretaker Masjumi (Moslem) Party government of Burhanuddin Harahap used a fleet of 100 yachts and fishing boats, air-force planes, army trucks, oxcarts and 3,500 bicycles to transport ballots. They distributed millions of leaflets, showing the different par ty symbols and explaining to the elector ate the simple mechanics of voting --punching a hole through the symbol of one's choice. Electoral officers plodded through the jungles to advertise the election with cartoon movies and singing pup pet shows. Sample song: "Let's all go there, brother, brother. Let's all go vote ... to be respected and defend the na tional state." At stake were 260 seats in a parliament that will govern Indonesia at least until year's end, when a constitutional assembly will be elected to write a permanent constitution for the republic. At issue was whether Indonesia reverts to the neurotic, fuzzily pro-Communist path of the Nationalist government, which fell in July (TIME, Aug. 1), or chooses to stay on the anti-Communist course of the present Masjumi regime, or so splinters its vote that only vague government-by-coalition is possible.

Bark Instead of Bite. In last week's campaign windup at a Communist strong hold near Djakarta, a pretty 24-year-old girl intensely pleaded the Masjumi line: "The Communists stabbed us in the back . . . The welfare of our people depends on Allah, not on Malenkov or Mao Tse-tung." A crowd of 2,000 barefooted workers and women listened impassively cheered lustily. But a larger crowd a mile away cheered, too, when a Communist speaker harangued against "Dutch imperialism," and accused the Masjumi of selling out Indonesia to the U.S. Similarly.

the Nationalists, like Pavlov's one-track-minded dogs, preferred to bark at the Dutch rather than bite into the current issues. In a remote Sumatran village a Nationalist screamed: "Politically you are free, economically you are not. Everything is still Dutch. You are guests in your own home."

Observers gave the anti-Communist Masjumi Party the best chance for a plurality (Indonesia is 95% Moslem) followed by the Communists. Socialists and Nationalists. But nobody felt very sure. "I don't understand all this," remarked a young lady in a tiny Javanese village. "How can a ratu (official) be chosen by us? They are sent from heaven.'

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