How do you build a winning political coalition from amongst 38 political parties, to fight a direct Presidential election in Indonesia - the world`s third largest democracy, with 171 million voters ? There is much talk of a jumbo coalition to oppose the incumbent President led by the main losing parties in the April 8^th general election. But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono may prove small steps can take a big country a long way.

Getting the official Indonesian election results in time to avoid old age or early retirement seems to be a major challenge. Like an elephant having triplets. So far we had the exit polls and quick count results on polling day. The unofficial results were very fast and are probably fairly accurate.

But we are going through the real count with elephantine speed and deliberation, and at various interim stages the PDI-P has won and not the Democrats, depending on which stronghold is being counted next. However, the final results are likely to prove the validity of the average.

The average or havaria started in Venice when glass merchants worked out a formula to cover the effects of bad weather and sloppy staff on shipping glass around the Mediterranean, and knocked down the price of the glass based on the forecast average for breakages on a given route.

So on average, the real results will approximate to the random sample results of exit polls and quick count tallies. But don’t tell that yet to the candidates with broken hearts, rather than broken glass, some of whom are asking for their money back from the people they gave it to. 

Meanwhile we work off the exit polls and quick counts of published official tallies on the day.

In the general elections on April 9^th, the Democratic Party of the incumbent President led with 20 percent of the votes, followed by two other nationalist parties, the Golkar Party, led by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, and the Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), led by Megawati Soekarnoputri (daughter of ex President Soekarno), with only 14 percent each.

The next four parties were Islamic or religious-inspired, with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) winning 8 percent of votes, the National Mandate Party (PAN) 6 percent. The United Development Party (PPP) and National Awakening Party (PKB) both gained 5 percent.

The two other parties on the political radar, gaining 4 percent each, were new parties led by ex-generals, the People Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Greater Indonesia Movement (Gerindra). 

It is forecast 29 political parties will have too few votes to be represented in the parliament (you need 2.5 percent to cross the threshold) while only 9 parties will gain parliamentary seats.

So as of now PDI-P, Golkar, Gerindra, and at least parts of PAN and PPP want to join jumbo coalition against the incumbent President. The Jakarta Post confirmed “Grand coalition set to emerge” in its front-page headline in May 1^st but missing only one detail – who would be the candidates for President and Vide President on the nomination papers by May 16^th. 

Maswadi Rauf of the University of Indonesia was quoted in the Jakarta Globe (30.04.09) as saying “They have to realize that not everybody can run for President.”

Megawati Soekarnoputri is the PDI-P candidate for President.  Jusuf Kalla is the Golkar candidate. Prabowo Subianto of the Greater Indonesia Movement represents a new small party but looks fresh, feisty and financed enough to put up a serious fight for the Presidency. They can´t all stand.

Meanwhile President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono organized a different strategy.

First he made the PKS the pivot of his coalition by agreeing to a political program matching his own priorities in support of global economic reform, anti-poverty programs, anti-corruption measures, reform of public administration and support for small and medium enterprises. He also secured the support of the PKB and others from the PAN and PPP will probably come over.

Second he patiently pulled in 12 small parties representing 12.5 percent of the electoral votes, including the Crescent Star Party (PBB), Concern for the National Functional Party (PKPB), Ulema National Awakening Party (PKNU) and the Christian Prosperous Peace Party (PDS).

So he has already marshalled parties representing 46.2 percent of the vote, which means well over half the seats in the House of Representatives.

Finally his remaining ace in the hand would be, at the last minute, to take a senior experienced political leader from Golkar as his Vice President and drive a coach and four horses through what was left of the jumbo coalition.

* Terry Lacey is a development economist who writes from Jakarta on modernization in the Muslim world, investment and trade relations with the EU and Islamic banking.