Leadership, Party, and ReligionExplaining Voting Behaviorin Indonesia

Comparative Political Studies
Volume 40 Number 7
July 2007 832-857
© 2007 Sage Publications
Leadership, Party, 10.1177/0010414006292113
http://cps.sagepub.com
and Religion hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Explaining Voting Behavior

in Indonesia
R. William Liddle
Ohio State University, Columbus
Saiful Mujani
Indonesian Survey Institute,
Freedom Institute, Jakarta, Indonesia
This case study tests the significance of leadership, party identification, reli-
gious orientation, political economy, and sociological and demographic fac-
tors in the legislative and presidential choices of voters in the new Indonesian
democracy. Data were obtained from four national opinion surveys con-
ducted by the authors following parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2004
and the two-round presidential election in 2004. Bivariate and multivariate
analyses of our data confirm the significance of leadership and party ID and
the nonsignificance for the most part of other variables tested, including reli-
gious orientation, long the most popular explanation for the Indonesian case.
Keywords: Indonesia; elections; leadership; party identification; religion
Leadership, Party ID, Religion,

and Voting Behavior
I n undertaking this pioneering comparative study of voting behavior in newly

democratic Indonesia, we recognized the need to cast a wide net. We chose
leadership, party identification (ID), religious orientation, political economy,
social class, ethnic identity, rural–urban cleavage, age, and gender as our
Authors’ Note: The 1999 survey was carried out with grants from the National Science
Foundation (#9975671) and the Mershon Center at Ohio State University, which also facili-
tated subsequent research and writing. The 2004 surveys were made possible by a grant from
the Japan International Cooperation Agency to the Indonesian Survey Institute. The authors
would like to thank Paul Beck, Allen Hicken, and Goldie Shabad for critical advice at key
points in the analysis and writing.
832
Liddle, Mujani / Voting Behavior in Indonesia 833
independent variables. Four national opinion surveys were conducted follow-

ing parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2004 and the two-round presidential
election in 2004 (see Appendix A). Among the variables tested, we believed
that leadership, party ID, and religious orientation were of greatest interest.
The impact of leadership on the vote is controversial. Some researchers
have pointed to the increasing electoral influence of party leaders (e.g., in
Britain, Canada and Australia; Bean & Mughan, 1989; Graetz & McAllister,
1987; Mughan, 2000; Stewart & Clarke, 1992; Winham & Cunningham, 1970).
Others have argued, for Germany and Britain, that the independent impact
of leadership is very small after being controlled for party ID (Kaase, 1994;
Rose & Suleiman, 1980).
This debate has been waged largely for industrialized countries where
political parties have been relatively institutionalized and the popular per-
ception of party leaders is likely to be shaped by partisanship. The leader-
ship effect on voting may be stronger in new democracies where party
politics is a novel phenomenon and where nonparty social leaders often play
an independent role in party formation during the transition from authoritar-
ianism (cf. Kitschelt, 1995). Indonesian democracy, though not entirely new,
was re-established after a long hiatus. Political parties were relatively unin-
stitutionalized during the previous authoritarian regime, and nonparty social
leaders were indeed prominent in the 1997 to 1999 transition.
In industrial countries, the mass media have played a critical role in the
personalization and presidentialization of voting (Gunther & Mughan,
2000; Mughan, 2000). In new democracies, the media, especially televi-
sion, which tends to be pervasive and popular, may have an even more pow-
erful impact because of their relative modernity and thus persuasiveness in
contrast to more traditional means of political communication. In the
Indonesian case, this certainly appears to be true.1
Strong political parties are crucial to democratic health. They represent
individual and civil society interests to government and shape those inter-
ests in fundamental ways. Strong parties in turn require effective organiza-
tion and many voters who identify with them. Party ID in new democracies,
particularly in Latin America and postcommunist societies, has been char-
acterized as weak by some scholars (Mainwaring & Scully, 1995; Mair,
1996), although Colton (2000) makes a powerful case that Russia’s “tran-
sitional partisans” vote for the parties with which they identify. What con-
tribution can the Indonesian experience make to this debate?
Finally, religion is believed to be an important sociological factor in vot-
ing behavior. Lijphart (1977) found that religion played a more important
role in shaping party vote choice in Belgium, Canada, South Africa, and
834 Comparative Political Studies
Switzerland than did language or class. In the United States, recent studies
find an upsurge of religious traditionalism among voters (Layman, 1997;
Layman & Carmines, 1997). In Indonesia, as elaborated below, religious
orientation—in particular the cleavage between pious and nominal
Muslims—has long been claimed to be the main determinant of party
choice. Moreover, as a new democracy Indonesia might be particularly sus-
ceptible to religious voting because weaker, uninstitutionalized political
parties are less able to play a mediating role between voters’ most basic loy-
alties and the national political process.
Background: Indonesian Democracy,

Parties, and Elections
Indonesian democracy was re-established in 1999 after four decades of

authoritarian rule under Presidents Sukarno (1959 to 1965) and Suharto
(1966 to 1998). Authoritarianism was preceded by a brief period of parlia-
mentary democracy (1949 to 1957), during which a single national democ-
ratic election was held in 1955 (Feith, 1957). Four parties received the
lion’s share of the 1955 vote: PNI (Indonesian National Party), Masyumi
(Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims), NU or Nahdlatul Ulama
(Awakening of the Traditional Islamic Teachers and Scholars), and PKI
(Indonesian Communist Party; see Table 1).
Masyumi and PKI were banned in 1960 and 1966, respectively. During
President Suharto’s New Order regime, nondemocratic national elections
were held on six occasions from 1971 to 1997. In all but the first of these
elections, only three parties were allowed to participate: Golkar (Functional
Groups), PDI (Indonesian Democracy Party), and PPP (Development Unity
Party). Golkar was a state party and PDI a government-imposed fusion of
PNI with two small secular nationalist parties and two small Christian par-
ties. PPP fused NU, a successor party to Masyumi, and two small Muslim
parties. In these elections, Golkar received between 63% and 75% of the
vote, PPP between 16% and 29%, and PDI between 3% and 15%.
In the 1999 democratic elections, five parties won a significant share of the
vote. On top was the secular nationalist PDI-P (Indonesian Democracy
Party–Struggle), a faction of the Suharto-era PDI. PDI-P was led by former
President Sukarno’s daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri. Second was the for-
mer state party Golkar, renamed Partai Golkar. PKB (National Awakening
Party), led by NU national chair Abdurrahman Wahid, was third, followed by
PPP, headed by another NU-affiliated leader, Hamzah Haz. The remaining
Table 1
Political Parties in Democratic Indonesian Parliamentary
Elections: In 1955, 1999, and 2004
Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of
Parties Votes in 1955 Parties Votes in 1999 Parties Votes in 2004
PNI 22.3 PDI-P 33.7 Partai Golkar 21.6

Masyumi 20.9 Partai Golkar 22.4 PDI-P 18.5
NU 18.4 PKB 12.6 PKB 10.6
PKI 16.4 PPP 10.7 PPP 8.2
PAN 7.1 PD 7.5
PKS 7.3
PAN 6.4
Other 22.0 13.5 19.9
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Note: Appendix B briefly describes each of these parties.

Source: Feith, 1957, pp. 58-59; International Foundation for Election Systems, 2000, p. 326;
Komisi Pemilihan Umum, 2004.
major party was PAN (National Mandate Party), led by Amien Rais, former
chair of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s largest modernist Muslim organization
and a constituent member of Masyumi in the 1950s.
In the April 2004 election for Parliament, seven parties won a significant
percentage of the vote. PDI-P dropped to second place, whereas Partai Golkar
remained at its 1999 level. PKB, PPP, and PAN weakened slightly. Two major
new parties emerged. Partai Demokrat (PD) was the personal electoral vehi-
cle of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired army general and minister in
President Megawati’s cabinet. PKS (Prosperous Justice Party) was led by a
young generation of Islamists inspired by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.2
In 2004, for the first time in Indonesian history, the president and vice
president were chosen in a direct election. Five pairs of candidates nomi-
nated by eligible parties, those which had passed a legal threshold in the
April parliamentary election, competed in the first round on July 5. A run-
off was held on September 20. The team of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and
Jusuf Kalla, which had won a solid plurality in the first round, won deci-
sively in the second.
Alternative Explanations for the Vote in Indonesia
Religion and Aliran. Since the 1955 election, most political scientists have
argued that the main determinant of party choice in Indonesia is culture,
specifically religious orientation (e.g., Crouch, 1978; Effendy, 2003;

Emmerson, 1976; Feith, 1962; Lev, 1967; Liddle, 1970). The current variant
of this argument (Baswedan, 2004; King, 2003), using the 1955 election as a
baseline for religious divisions, claims that the major parties in the 1999 and
2004 elections are the inheritors of those divisions.
The religious orientation argument originated with Geertz (1960), who
describes four variants of Javanese Islam: the animistic abangan, the ortho-
dox santri, divided further into conservatives or traditionalists and mod-
ernists, and the more Hinduized priyayi. Geertz’s religious categories also
have a class element. The abangan were ordinary villagers, the santri petty
traders and small farmers, the priyayi state officials. In 1950s Java, these
four variants found political expression in aliran, Indonesian for stream or
current. In Java, there were four large aliran—PNI, PKI, Masyumi, and
NU—representing the priyayi, abangan, modernist, and traditionalist santri
variants, respectively.
The Geertzian paradigm applied only to the ethnic Javanese, who con-
stitute about half the national population. Political scientists quickly gener-
alized it to the rest of Indonesia, however. PNI, PKI, and NU were mainly
parties of east and central Java, whereas Masyumi was overrepresented
in the Outer Islands. Political scientists have used the aliran paradigm to
explain the nondemocratic elections of the New Order and the democratic
election of 1955. A version of the paradigm formed the consciously chosen
basis for Suharto’s forced fusion in 1973 of all Muslim parties into PPP and
secular nationalist plus Christian parties into PDI.
Students of post-Suharto democratic Indonesian politics have continued
to stress the influence of religious orientation. King (2003) has offered the
most systematic discussion, using bivariate and multiple regression analyt-
ical techniques to compare the 1955 and 1999 election outcomes. His data
consist of official election tallies and demographic variables (indicators of
urbanization, government activity, Islamicness, illiteracy, relative inequal-
ity, and development factors), disaggregated to the district and municipal-
ity level. His central conclusion is that there has been continuity along two
dimensions: the cleavage between abangan and santri parties; and the
intrasantri cleavage between Muslim traditionalists and modernists.
In the most recent study, Baswedan (2004) compared partisan support in
1999 and 2004 using King’s (2003) method. Baswedan found a significant
correlation between support for Islamic parties in Indonesia’s districts
and municipalities across the two elections. Similarly, nationalist and
Christian parties were most heavily supported in districts that had been
PDI-P’s 1999 base. Baswedan concludes that “at the mass level one still
finds aliran political polarization. Shifts across aliran did not occur in the
2004 election. This finding confirms King’s conclusion that aliran politics
is still influential” (p. 12).
Leadership. Much historical evidence suggests that party and other

leaders have played significant roles in shaping the popular vote in democ-
ratic and nondemocratic elections in Indonesia. In its 1955 campaign, PNI
made much of its historic relationship with national founding father
Sukarno. Masyumi’s Mohammad Natsir was a charismatic leader who did
much to define Muslim political identity in the 1950s and subsequently.
Under Chairman D. N. Aidit, the communist party made a remarkable
comeback from its near destruction by the army in 1948.
In 1992, after Sukarno’s daughter Megawati became its chair, PDI
increased its vote by 4% over the previous 1987 election. In 1997, after
Megawati had been forced out of office by Suharto, the party’s vote plum-
meted from 14.9% to 3.1%. In 1999, the first democratic election,
Megawati’s faction, PDI-P, overwhelmed what had been the official PDI
during the last years of the New Order. In that same election, the Megawati-
led PDI-P also soundly defeated Partai Golkar.
In 1999, several parties without prominent leaders claimed the Masyumi
mantle. None was successful. In contrast, PAN, led by Amien Rais, won 7%.
Although Amien had earlier headed Muhammadiyah, the largest Muslim
organization once affiliated with Masyumi, PAN is a secular party. Similarly,
several parties claimed to represent the tens of millions of NU members, but
only PKB, led by Abdurrahman Wahid, won many votes. Partai Golkar’s
most prominent leader in 1999 was South Sulawesi native son President
Habibie. The party won big in his home region but almost nowhere else.
Most recent is the story of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In the first
round of the 2004 presidential election, Yudhoyono, a candidate almost
without a party, won a solid plurality over Megawati, the candidate of the
previously formidable PDI-P. For the second round, Partai Golkar, PDI-P,
and some smaller parties with more than half the parliamentary vote formed
a National Coalition to support Megawati. Yudhoyono’s counter People’s
Coalition contained only his own PD, PKS, and a few smaller parties, less
than one quarter of the parliamentary vote. Yudhoyono nonetheless con-
vincingly defeated Megawati by 61% to 39%. Most of his votes in both the
first and second rounds came from parties other than his own. In a series of
surveys conducted by the authors’ Indonesian Survey Institute, Yudhoyono
was consistently the first choice of voters for most of the major parties. We
pursue this argument further below.
Other hypothesized factors: Party ID, ethnicity, social class, political

economy, age, and sex. Other possible explanatory factors are much less
prominent in the Indonesian literature than religious orientation. Party ID
has not been studied at all, because of the historic lack of surveys of indi-
vidual voter opinion and of concern with colinearity in a party-list based
electoral system. More attention has been paid to ethnicity. In 1955, PNI,
PKI, and NU were strongest in east and central Java, and Masyumi was
strongest outside Java, suggesting a Java versus Outer Islands electoral pat-
tern (Feith, 1957). Today’s PDI-P, with roots in PNI, and PKB, founded by
NU leaders, are identified with ethnic Java, as is PD, seen as drawing on the
PNI constituency (King 2003). Golkar was once strong in all regions, but
did poorly on Java in its first real electoral competition in 1999 and is iden-
tified today as a non-Java party. PPP, with organizational roots in Masyumi,
is also seen as an Outer Island party.
Social class or economic interest may have been a good predictor of the
vote in 1955, when the presence of the communist party made class dis-
tinctions sharp. Today, most parties make populist campaign promises, but
none have well-defined economic programs. Some analysts have identified
Partai Golkar with the status quo, meaning support for market-oriented eco-
nomic policies, and PDI-P with a more protectionist or socialist agenda. We
hypothesized that richer, more educated, more white collar, and more urban
voters would tend to vote for Partai Golkar over PDI-P.
Some political economy studies suggest that voter evaluations of the
condition of the national economy are more important than personal pock-
etbook concerns (Kinder & Kiewiet, 1981). In 1999, we hypothesized that
voters who positively evaluated the national economy would vote for Partai
Golkar, the incumbent party. In 2004, we expected that the comparable vot-
ers would vote for PDI-P, now the incumbent party, and for Megawati, the
incumbent president, relative to other parties and candidates. Finally, some
observers suggest that PKS, the Islamist party with origins among university
students, might be particularly strong among younger voters and that PDI-P
and Megawati as presidential candidate might have greater appeal among
women. We therefore tested the effect of age and gender.
Method. Data for this study were obtained from four national opinion
surveys. Survey method and operationalization are spelled out in the appen-
dix. Briefly, our measures of leadership are expressed preference for a par-
ticular leader and an assessment of that leader’s personal qualities. Party ID
is measured by feelings of closeness to a particular party. Religious orien-
tation is operationalized in four measures of Indonesian Islamic practice:
intensity of conducting daily prayers, fasting during the month of Ramadan,

reciting the Qur’an, and attending religious lectures.
Survey Findings: Leadership

and Party ID Predominant
Bivariate analysis. Indonesian voters are strongly attached to national

party leaders, an attachment that appears to be a principal reason for voting
for political party or for president. Table 2 shows significant relationships
between leader preference as an independent variable and the votes for par-
ties in the 1999 and 2004 parliamentary elections and the first and second
round votes for president in 2004 as dependent variables. Lambda coeffi-
cients indicate the strength and significance of the associations. These are
very strong between preference for leader and three of the four dependent
variables. The exception is the 2004 parliamentary vote, in which the
lambda coefficient is only moderately strong. What explains this exception?
The short answer, to be elaborated below, is the preference of many respon-
dents for a leader, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, not from the party for
which they voted.
There are also significant relationships between party ID as independent
variable and all of the dependent variables in the table. The association is
very strong between party ID and partisan vote in both the parliamentary
elections; it is moderate or weak between party ID and presidential choice
in the two presidential elections. Because Indonesians vote for party and
not candidate in parliamentary elections, the very strong associations
between party ID and parliamentary vote are perhaps to be expected.3 What
explains the weaker associations with the presidential votes? Again, the
short answer is the cross-party attractive power of Yudhoyono.
In both the 1999 and 2004 legislative elections, there is a strong rela-
tionship between preference for a leader and vote for that leader’s party. In
1999, 88% of respondents who preferred Megawati voted for PDI-P, 89%
of respondents who preferred Habibie voted for Golkar, 95% of respon-
dents who preferred Abdurrahman Wahid voted for PKB, and 79% of
respondents who preferred Amien Rais voted for PAN. Table 3 disaggre-
gates leader preference for seven party leaders and parties in the 2004 par-
liamentary election. Once again, voters were very likely to vote for the
party headed by their preferred leader: PKB for Abdurrahman Wahid, Partai
Golkar for Akbar Tandjung (at the time the head of the party, which had not
Table 2
λ) of Party ID, Preference for Leader,
Bivariate Analysis (λ
Voting for Party and for President in the 1999 and 2004
Parliamentary Elections and the 2004 Presidential Election
Party Vote, Party Vote, President Vote 1, President Vote 2,
1999 April 2004 July 2004 September 2004
Party Identification
λ .91 .92 .53 .21
N 1,622 521 630 607
Leader preference
λ .77 .43 .83 .67
N 1,156 632 810 607
Note: The lambda (λ) coefficient ranges from 0 to 1.0. Zero indicates no association and 1.0
a perfect association. All associations in this table are significant at the .01 or better level of
confidence.
yet chosen its presidential candidate), PAN for Amien Rais, PPP for
Hamzah Haz, PKS for Hidayat Nurwahid, and PDI-P for Megawati.
There is also an apparent anomaly in Table 3. Significant numbers of
respondents who preferred Yudhoyono divided their vote in the parliamen-
tary election between Yudhoyono’s PD, the PKB led by Abdurrahman, the
PKS of Hidayat, and the Partai Golkar of Tandjung. Indeed, nearly 10% of
those who preferred Yudhoyono voted for the PDI-P of Megawati. It is the
broader distribution of those who preferred Yudhoyono among the parties
that accounts for the lower lambda of this table.
Why did voters who preferred Yudhoyono spread their partisan votes so
widely in the 2004 parliamentary election? Yudhoyono was a new figure in
national electoral politics, a retired army general and cabinet minister under
President Megawati, who was making his first run for national office. PD
was created in 2002 by Yudhoyono, who was then considering the possibil-
ity of running for the presidency. The party only began to organize across
the country in 2003 and was not yet widely known to the electorate. As a
former army officer and high-ranking cabinet official, Yudhoyono was
probably also identified in the public mind with Partai Golkar, which may
explain why a third of those who preferred him voted for that party. Golkar
had been the state party under Suharto and had been closely tied for three
decades to the state bureaucracy in all regions of the country and also with
the armed forces, which maintains a parallel territorial hierarchy to the
civilian government.
Table 3
Party Vote Choice Restricted to Seven Parties According to Preference for Particular
Party Leaders, 2004 Parliamentary Election (in Percentages)
Party
Indonesian
Development National National Prosperous Functional Democracy
Unity Democrat Mandate Awakening Justice Party Groups Party Party–Struggle
Party (PPP) Party (PD) Party (PAN) Party (PKB) (PKS) (Partai Golkar) (PDI-P)
Leader
Abdurrahman Wahid 5.6 1.4 0 83.3 0 5.6 4.2 100.0
Akbar Tandjung 0 0 1.8 0 0 96.4 1.8 100.0
Amien Rais 5.9 2.0 74.5 0 9.8 7.8 0 100.0
Hamzah Haz 95.7 0 0 4.3 0 0 0 100.0
Hidayat Nurwahid 4.2 0 0 12.5 75.0 0.3 0 100.0
Megawati Sukarnoputri 1.8 0.9 0.9 1.8 1.8 3.6 89.1 100.0
Susilo Bambang 5.1 23.6 4.1 13.2 11.5 33.4 9.1 100.0
Yudhoyono
Note: N = 632; χ² = 1454.441; df = 36; p value = .001; Cramer’s V = .62 (p < .001); λ = .43 (p < .001).
841
Those who preferred Yudhoyono also voted in significant numbers for

PKB, the party of traditionalist Islam, PKS, the party of modernist Islamism,
and PDI-P, the party of secular nationalism and Javanese syncretism. We
interpret this phenomenon as evidence that preference for leader may operate
independently of party vote choice. From late 2003 through early 2004,
growing numbers of voters indicated, in surveys conducted by the Indonesian
Survey Institute, a preference for Yudhoyono as a national political leader. At
the same time, support for the incumbent Megawati was slipping.
In the first round presidential election, conducted in July 2004, respon-
dents who preferred a particular leader overwhelmingly reported voting for
that leader for president.4 Table 4 provides interesting evidence that, in the
case of voting for president, party ID for many voters was less important
than preference for leader. For Megawati, Yudhoyono, and Amien Rais,
there is a very strong association between party ID and presidential vote.
The slippage between party ID and presidential vote is most apparent in the
Yudhoyono column. Yudhoyono obtained two-digit support from partisans
of every party except PAN, who gave him just under 10%.
PKB did not have a presidential candidate of its own. Its leader, former
President Abdurrahman Wahid, had been officially ruled ineligible on
health grounds (he is nearly blind and has other severe health problems). To
be sure, the religious orientation factor was undoubtedly at work here as
well. Megawati and Wiranto’s vice presidential candidates were both
prominent national-level leaders of NU, the traditional Islamic organization
behind PKB. This fact partially explains the substantial percentages of PKB
identifiers who chose Megawati and Wiranto for president. Yudhoyono’s
vice-presidential candidate, Jusuf Kalla, was an NU sympathizer in his
home region of South Sulawesi, which may explain some of the vote for
Yudhoyono from PKB identifiers.
PPP’s Hamzah Haz was the least popular candidate among members
of his own party, who voted in relatively large numbers for Wiranto and
Yudhoyono. The NU connection may have been working here too, because
many PPP voters are NU members (recall that the party was originally a
forced fusion, by Suharto, of NU with other Muslim parties). Finally, nearly
a third of Partai Golkar’s voters chose Yudhoyono, not their own party’s
candidate, Wiranto. The NU factor is not thought to have had a significant
impact on the presidential choices of Partai Golkar voters.
The argument that preference for a leader can be more powerful than
party ID in determining presidential choice is further confirmed by the find-
ings reported in Table 5 and especially Table 6. Table 5 shows that in the
presidential run-off, nearly all of the respondents who preferred Yudhoyono
Table 4
Voting for President According to Party ID,
July 2004 (in Percentages)
Megawati Hamzah Haz Amien Rais Wiranto Yudhoyono
Party identification
Indonesian Democracy 81.5 0.0 3.5 4.0 11.0 100.0
Party–Struggle (PDI-P)
Democrat Party (PD) 5.4 1.4 1.4 5.4 86.5 100.0
National Mandate Party (PAN) 3.0 0.0 86.6 1.5 9.0 100.0
National Awakening Party (PKB) 14.5 0.0 2.9 60.9 21.7 100.0
Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) 0.0 0.0 57.1 8.6 34.3 100.0
Development Unity Party (PPP) 10.0 43.3 6.7 13.3 26.7 100.0
Functional Groups Party 7.1 0.5 1.1 60.4 30.8 100.0
(Partai Golkar)
Note: N = 630; χ² = 1106.814; df = 24; p value = .001; Cramer’s V = .66 (p < .001); λ = .53
(p < .001).
Table 5
Voting for President According to Preference
for Leader, September 2004
Yudhoyono % Megawati % Total %
Leader preference
Yudhoyono 420 94.6 24 5.4 444 100
Megawati 29 17.8 134 82.2 163 100
(p < .001).
voted for him. A slightly lower percentage, four fifths, of the voters who
preferred Megawati voted for her. Table 6 demonstrates the broad base of
Yudhoyono’s support in strong contrast to Megawati’s continued dependence
on her own PDI-P. What is most telling in this table, however, is the
Yudhoyono vote from Partai Golkar, PDI-P, and PPP partisans. National
leaders of these three parties had announced the formation of a new elec-
toral alliance, the National Coalition, after the first round, explicitly
instructing their followers to vote for Megawati. Instead, 82% of Partai
Golkar partisans and 78% of PPP partisans in our sample chose Yudhoyono.
Almost as devastating, nearly a third of Megawati’s own PDI-P voters aban-
doned her in the second round.
Are there any larger lessons to be drawn from the Yudhoyono phenom-
enon for the power of leadership in Indonesia and perhaps universally?
Table 6
Voting for President According to Party Identification,
September 2004 (in Percentages)
Yudhoyono Megawati Total
Functional Groups Party (Partai Golkar) 81.6 18.4 100.0
Indonesian Democracy Party–Struggle (PDI-P) 29.5 70.5 100.0
Democrat Party (PD) 97.5 2.5 100.0
National Mandate Party (PAN) 97.1 2.9 100.0
National Awakening Party (PKB) 80.0 20.0 100.0
Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) 93.8 6.3 100.0
Development Unity Party (PPP) 78.3 21.7 100.0
(p < .001).
Generalization is obviously premature on the basis of one case, one elec-

tion and one country. But the insight is worth pursuing in future election
studies in Indonesia and elsewhere. Attractive leadership can trump strong
party loyalties, perhaps especially in systems characterized by separate leg-
islative and presidential elections.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that religious difference played little or
no role in the second round presidential election. The anti-Yudhoyono
National Coalition combined two parties, PDI-P and PPP, argued by cul-
tural theorists to represent the opposing poles of secular nationalism or
Javanese syncretism and Islam. Partai Golkar is sometimes argued by the
same theorists to be an Islamic party, or at least a party whose base can be
traced to the Masyumi of the 1950s (King, 2003). Yudhoyono’s own elec-
toral alliance, the People’s Coalition, formed in response, similarly con-
sisted of parties spanning the secular nationalist-Islamic divide.
Megawati herself was clearly identifiable to most political observers
as a secular nationalist. Yudhoyono’s religious orientation was less clear, in
part because he grew up in east Java, the principal NU stronghold, and had
been offered a leadership position in PKB, NU’s party. His military and
civilian bureaucratic background, however, plus the absence of a history of
Islamic activism, suggests that he too represents secular nationalism.
Multivariate analysis. In the bivariate statistics, both leadership and party

ID are strongly related to party and presidential choice. To make sure that
these relationships are not spurious, we controlled for social and demographic
factors, including Muslim religiosity, in a multivariate analysis. If party ID,

leadership, and religion each have an independent impact on voting behavior,
these relationships will remain significant.5
Our multivariate analysis shows that the association between leadership
and most pairs in voting for party or for president in the four elections is strong
and consistent regardless of party ID, Muslim religiosity, and other factors.
Voters who have a positive perception of a party figure or presidential candi-
date tended to vote for that party or candidate relative to other parties and can-
didates. In the 1999 election (Table 7), for example, preference for Amien
relative to Megawati increases significantly the probability of voting for PPP,
Golkar, and PAN relative to PDI-P regardless of party ID, Muslim religiosity,
and other factors. Similarly, preference for Abdurrahman relative to Megawati
significantly increases the likelihood of voting for PPP and PKB relative to
PDI-P regardless of party ID, Muslim religiosity, and other factors.
Preferences for Habibie or Abdurrahman relative to Megawati have similar
impacts. Table 8 demonstrates that preference for Abdurrahman increases
significantly the probability of voting for PKB relative to PDI-P. Table 9
demonstrates that preference for Amien increases his vote significantly
relative to Megawati in the first-round presidential election. Preference for
Megawati significantly decreases the likelihood of voting for Yudhoyono
relative to Megawati (Table 10).
Party ID also has a significant and consistent impact on most pairs of
party or presidential candidate choices. Feeling closer to PDI-P signifi-
cantly decreases the probability of voting for PPP, Golkar, PKB, PAN, PKS,
or PD relative to PDI-P (Tables 7 and 8). Feeling closer to PDI-P signifi-
cantly decreases the probability of voting for Wiranto, Yudhoyono, or
Amien relative to PDI-P presidential candidate Megawati (Table 9); feeling
closer to PD significantly increases the probability of voting for PD presi-
dential candidate Yudhoyono relative to Megawati (Table 10).
Muslim religiosity has a limited impact on voting behavior, helping to
explain voting for some but not most pairs of parties. The more religious a
Muslim, the more likely he or she is to vote for PKB or PPP relative to PDI-
P or to vote for Hamzah or Wiranto relative to Megawati (Tables 7, 8, and
9). Muslim religiosity does not, however, have a significant impact on other
party or presidential candidate pairs. We expected but did not find a signif-
icant impact on voting for PAN, PKS, and Golkar (three parties with close
ties to parts of the Muslim community) relative to PDI-P. These relation-
ships, significant in the bivariate, disappear in the multivariate analysis.
The influence of retrospective evaluations, present though not strong in the
bivariate analysis, also disappears in the multivariate. Education, however, has
Table 7
Multivariate Analysis of Party Choice, 1999 Legislative Election
(Multinomial Logistic Regression Coefficients)
846
Development Unity Functional Groups National Awakening National Mandate
Party (PPP) Party (Partai Golkar) Party (PKB) Party (PAN)
Versus Indonesian Versus Indonesian Versus Indonesian Versus Indonesian
Democracy Party– Democracy Party– Democracy Party– National Democracy
Struggle (PDI-P) SE Struggle (PDI-P) SE Struggle (PDI-P) SE Party–Struggle (PDI-P) SE
Leadership
Amien versus 0.8* .714 1.9** .634 3.2*** .620
Megawati
Abdurrahman 2.9* .961 4.7*** .772
versus Megawati
Habibie versus 2.2** .635 3.3*** .496
Megawati
Indonesian –1.1** .336 –2.2*** .461 –1.7*** .370 –2.5*** .687
Democracy
Party–Struggle
Functional Groups Party 1.2* .555 2.4*** .468
(Partai Golkar)
National Awakening 2.8*** .505
Party (PKB)
Development Unity 2.6*** .587
Party (PPP)
National Mandate 2.2*** .630
Party (PAN)
Demographic and
societal factors
Education 0.7** .254
Muslim religiosity 1.2* .469
Age –0.04 .020
Ethnicity: Javanese –1.0* .400
Note: N = 1014; Pseudo R² (Cox and Snell) = .890; –2 log likelihood = 692.404; χ² = 2234.798; df = 52; p value = .000; Percentage predicted = 91.2.
*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
Table 8
Multivariate Analysis of Party Choice, 2004 Legislative Election
(Multinomial Logistic Regression Coefficients)
Development Unity Democrat Party National Mandate National Awakening Prosperous Justice Functional Groups Party
Party (PPP) Versus (PD) Versus Party (PAN) Party Versus Party (PKS) (Partai Golkar) Versus
Indonesian Indonesian Versus Indonesian Indonesian Versus Indonesian Indonesian Democracy
Democracy Party– Democracy Party– Democracy Party– Democracy Party– Democracy Party– Democracy Party–
Struggle (PDI-P) SE Struggle (PDI-P) SE Struggle (PDI-P) SE Struggle (PDI-P) SE Struggle (PDI-P) SE Struggle (PDI-P) SE
Leadership
Abdurrahman 1.5*** .314 –0.4** .207
Akbar Tandjung 1.3*** .218
Amien 1.3*** .349
Hamzah 2.2*** .569
Megawati –1.5*** .306 –1.1*** .283 –1.3*** .304 –1.1*** .282 –1.4*** 300 –0.9*** .223
Functional Groups Party –0.9** .347 1.9*** .285
(Partai Golkar)
Indonesian Democracy –1.5*** .365 –1.3*** .359 –2.0*** .369 –1.9*** .350 –1.4*** .427 –1.4**** .277
National Awakening Party (PKB) 2.0*** .333
Development Unity Party (PPP) 2.3*** .384
Democrat Party (PD) 5.1*** .892 2.1** .932
Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) 0.8* .360 0.8* .406 3.0** .431 0.6* .328
National Mandate Party (PAN) 2.2*** .383
Demographic and
societal factors
Education 0.3** .093 0.2* .104
Muslim religiosity 0.9** .263 0.8*** .232
Rural –1.0* .471 –1.6*** .534
Ethnicity: Javanese –1.4*** .360
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
847
Table 9
848
Multivariate Analysis of First-Round Voting for President, 2004
(Multinomial Logistic Regression Coefficients).
Hamzah Versus Wiranto Versus Amien Versus Yudhoyono Versus
Megawati SE Megawati SE Megawati SE Megawati SE
Leadership
Amien 1.0*** .348 3.1*** .381 0.5* .180
Hamzah 1.8*** .460
Megawati –2.3*** .470 –2.6*** .311 –2.8*** .350 –2.5*** .296
Yudhoyono 1.6*** .218
Wiranto 1.9*** .272
Functional Groups Party
(Partai Golkar)
Indonesian Democracy –1.3*** .303 –1.1*** .395 –1.0*** .200
National Awakening Party (PKB) 0.5* .220
Development Unity Party (PPP) 1.0*** .340
National Mandate Party (PAN) 0.7* .375
Demographic and
societal factors
Education 0.8*** .375
Muslim religiosity 1.1*** .332 0.4* .171
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Table 10
Multivariate Analysis of the Second-Round 2004
Presidential Election, Yudhoyono Relative to Megawati
(Binary Logistic Regression Coefficients).
Yudhoyono Versus Megawati SE
Leadership
Megawati –2.2** .212
Yudhoyono 2.0** .313
Functional Groups Party (Partai Golkar) 0.2* .093
Indonesian Democracy Party–Struggle (PDI-P) –0.9** .101
Democrat Party 0.9** .120
Demographic and societal factors
Gender: male –0.7** .206
Note: N = 924; Pseudo R² (Cox and Snell) = .423; –2 log likelihood = 691.236; χ² = 518.442;
df = 12; p value = .000; Percentage predicted = 83.6.
*p < .01.**p < .001.
a significant and consistent impact on voting behavior in the four elections.

Regardless of leadership, party ID, and other demographic factors, higher lev-
els of education increase the likelihood of voting for PAN, PKS, or PD rela-
tive to PDI-P (Tables 9 and 10). Education also increases the likelihood of
voting for Amien relative to Megawati or other presidential candidates (Table
9). The impact of education is not surprising, because Amien was widely
believed to be popular among more educated voters.
The rural–urban cleavage is another demographic factor that has a sig-
nificant impact on voting behavior in Indonesia. However, the impact is
limited to particular party or presidential candidate pairs and is inconsistent.
Being rural relative to being urban significantly decreases the likelihood of
voting for PKS relative to PDI-P, Partai Golkar, PKB, PAN, or PD, and of
voting for PD relative to PDI-P or Partai Golkar. These relationships appear
only in the 2004 legislative election (Table 8) and are not significant in the
1999 data (Table 7). They support the conventional wisdom that PKS is the
most urban party and also indicate that PD is mainly an urban party.
Finally, ethnic affiliation also has a direct influence on voting indepen-
dent of leadership or party ID. This influence is limited, however, to the
contests between PDI-P or PKB and other parties, especially Partai Golkar
or PPP in the 1999 election. In the 2004 legislative election, the impact of
ethnicity is even less. To be a Javanese decreases the probability of voting
for Partai Golkar relative to other parties (Table 8). Again, this is consistent
with the conventional wisdom that Partai Golkar is a non-Javanese party.

Ethnicity has no impact on the presidential election, which is consistent
with the fact that all presidential candidates who won a significant vote in
the first round are Javanese. Hamzah, who received 4% of the first-round
vote, was the only non-Javanese candidate. Yudhoyono and Megawati, the
competitors in the second round, are both Javanese.
Conclusions
Analysis of survey data for four Indonesian elections demonstrates that

leadership and party ID are the most important determinants of the vote for
parties in the legislative elections and for candidates in the presidential
elections.
Voter attention to leaders is almost certainly driven by the rapid spread
and great popularity in recent years of television and of the current atmos-
phere of media freedom and pluralism. Television exposure has sharply
increased both voter knowledge of individual political leaders and per-
ceived ability to evaluate those leaders. Also relevant is the prominence in
the 1997 to 1999 democratic transition of individual civil society leaders,
especially NU’s Abdurrahman Wahid and Muhammadiyah’s Amien Rais.
Viewed comparatively, Indonesia appears to be a genuine instance of the
presidentialization of voting behavior in a new democracy.
What explains the strength of the relationship between party ID and the
vote? One plausible explanation is voter familiarity with the three parties
that had been allowed to contest elections in the authoritarian New Order
era. It is true that PDI-P, Golkar, and PPP came in first, second, and fourth,
respectively, in the first democratic election in 1999. Complicating this
explanation, however, is the broader impact of party ID. In 1999 (Table 7),
for example, there are strong relationships between PKB party ID and the
vote for PKB relative to PDI-P and between PAN party identifiers and the
vote for PAN relative to PDI-P. In 2004 (Table 8), there were strong rela-
tionships between PD, PAN, PKB and PKS party identifiers, again all rela-
tive to PDI-P, and the vote for each of those parties. Some other factor than
voter familiarity must be at work here.
Sociological explanations are of less value than leadership or party ID.
Most parties and candidates claim to represent the lower class. Their eco-
nomic platforms are uniformly protectionist, making it difficult if not
impossible for voters to discern policy differences. Ethnicity, like social
class, is not highly politicized electorally. At the same time, several large
parties are historically associated with particular regions of the country,

such as PDI-P or PKB in Java or Partai Golkar in the Outer Islands. This
explains why ethnic cleavages still have some impact on voting for those
parties.
Finally, the influence of religious orientation or aliran, operationalized
as Muslim religiosity on the 1999 and 2004 vote is also limited. This find-
ing runs directly counter to the dominant interpretive school in Indonesian
studies, begun by Geertz in the 1950s and represented currently by King
and Baswedan. In comparative terms, the Indonesian data do not lend sup-
port to the proposition that religion is an important influence on voting
behavior or to the most recent findings for the United States of an electoral
resurgence among religious traditionalists.
Appendix A
Method and Empirical Measures
Methodology. Four national surveys, one conducted in 1999 and three in 2004,
provide the data for this analysis. The 1999 survey was carried out by a team, led
by the authors, at the University of Indonesia, Jakarta, immediately after that year’s
election. The 2004 surveys were carried out by the Indonesian Survey Institute
(Lembaga Survei Indonesia, LSI) immediately after the legislative election in April
and the first- and second-round presidential elections in July and September.
The 1999 sample consisted of 2,500 respondents drawn randomly from the pop-
ulation of individuals eligible to vote, proportionate to Indonesia’s rural–urban
ratio, its population nation wide, from Aceh to Papua (but not including East Timor,
which soon became independent), and gender. The sampling frame was constructed
by the commercial polling firm AC-Nielsen. The three 2004 samples were reduced
to 1,200 for budgetary reasons. Demographic characteristics (ethnicity, religious
affiliation, education, and household income) of all four samples closely mirror
government census data.
Data on the population were taken from the Indonesian government’s Central
Statistical Bureau census reports of 1995 (for the 1999 survey) and 2000 (for the
2004 surveys). Our primary sampling unit was the rural village and urban ward. The
number of villages and wards for each province was selected through a systematic
random sampling according to the proportion of the national population resident in
the province. In each village or ward, we used a Kish grid to choose four male and
four female residents.
Interviews were conducted face-to-face by trained interviewers, male and female
students at local universities. Interviewers dressed conservatively and were
instructed to address interviewees respectfully. For quality control, 50% of the 1999
respondents were randomly selected to determine that they had in fact been inter-
viewed. In 2004, provincial coordinators sampled 10% of the villages and wards in
their respective regions. An LSI researcher in Jakarta also randomly selected five
provinces, in each of which 10% of the villages and wards were chosen for spot
checks.
Of the 1999 initial sample of 2,500, only 1,489 interviews were completed and
considered valid for analysis. Forty-eight parties competed in the 1999 election, but
only 5 received more than 5% of the vote. Among our respondents, 13.5% had voted
for 1 of the remaining 43 parties, too small a group for us to analyze. In addition,
only 68% of the respondents said that they had a preference for a particular leader;
only four of these leaders (Megawati, Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, and Amien
Rais) were mentioned by more than 5% of the respondents. Our analysis was
restricted to these four individuals, which meant that our final sample was further
reduced to 1,156 or 46%. The same procedure was followed with the 2004 samples.
Empirical measures. Our measures of leadership are expressed preference for a

particular leader and an assessment of that leader’s personal qualities. We asked vot-
ers if there is a leader they prefer and to name that leader. In 2004, we asked about
personal leadership qualities, defined as the following: (a) competence, including
knowledgeability and intelligence; (b) effectiveness, including charisma, capacity to
inspire, and to get things done; (c) integrity, measured by honesty; (d) empathy,
measured by compassion; and (e) likeability (cf. Bean & Mughan, 1989; Miller &
Shanks, 1996).
Party ID is measured by three questions: Is there any party that you feel close to?
If yes, which party is that? How close do you feel to the party? Very close, quite
close, a little close?
Restricting our analysis to the five largest parties in 1999 and seven largest in
2004, we constructed seven variables from these questions: Golkar ID, PDI-P ID,
PKB ID, PPP ID, PD ID, PKS ID, and PAN ID. Respondents who answered nega-
tively to the first question were regarded as independents, whereas all others were
coded as having a party ID. Degree of party ID, the third question, was measured
on a 7-point scale for each party. For example, Golkar identifiers consisted of very
close to Golkar (7), quite close to Golkar (6), and a little close to Golkar (5).
Independents were scored 4. Identifiers with other parties were scored very close to
non-Golkar (1), quite close to non-Golkar (2), and a little close to non-Golkar (3).
The central component of aliran is religious orientation among Muslims. Geertz
(1960) defined Muslim orthodoxy (santriness) in terms of a particular set of rituals
and practices expressed in the five pillars of Islam. These include the expression of
faith in God and the prophet Muhammad, five daily prayers, fasting during the
month of Ramadan, giving alms, and making the pilgrimage to Mecca.
In our surveys, nearly all respondents state that they believe in God. We decided
that giving alms and making the pilgrimage are not good measures of religiosity, as
they are biased toward wealthier Muslims. Our Geertz-derived measures are therefore
limited to intensity of conducting daily prayers and Ramadan fasting. To increase vari-
ation, we added two measures of nonmandatory behavior: Qur’anic recitation (men-
gaji) and attending religious lectures (ikut pengajian). These items were added to
construct a 4-point scale of Muslim religiosity. The reliability of the scale (alpha) is
.80. Factor analysis revealed that the items constitute a single dimension of Muslim
religiosity.
We believe that the face validity of our measure is high. It is closer to that of
Geertz than of King and Baswedan, who basically limited their definition of
religion to nominal affiliation. Furthermore, qualitative studies by anthropologists
in the past 30 years have shown a higher level of religiosity among Indonesian,
especially Javanese, Muslims than had previously been reported (Hefner, 1987;
Moller, 2005).
Our measure of political economy is restricted to retrospective evaluation of the
national economic condition. We asked respondents the following: How is the
national economic condition this year compared to last year? Is it much better,
better, about the same, worse, or much worse? Social class is measured by educa-
tion, occupation, and income. Level of education is an 8-point scale, from never
went to school to some university or higher. Type of occupation we simplify into
two categories, blue-collar and white-collar workers. Blue collar includes farm
workers, industrial laborers, informal sector small business people, fishers, and the
like. White collar includes civil servants, administrative staff members, managers,
company owners, professionals, and the like. Income is measured on an 11-point
scale: lower than 200 thousand rupiah per month to 2 million rupiah or more per
month. The three components of social class are strongly correlated (r = .52).
Ethnic identity is measured by respondent’s report of his or her ethnic back-
ground (Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, and so on), which was compressed into
two categories: Javanese and other. For rural–urban cleavage, respondent’s resi-
dence was coded in terms of the Central Statistical Bureau’s categories of rural vil-
lage or urban ward. Age is as reported by respondent, whereas gender was coded by
the interviewer.
Appendix B
Party Descriptions
1955
PNI, Indonesian National Party—Secular nationalist, mass-base syncretist Muslims
or non-Muslims, led by secular state officials, founded by first President
Sukarno. Strongest in east and central Java.
Masyumi, Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims—Islamic, mass base mod-
ernist and traditionalist Muslims, led by merchants and modernist intellectuals.
Strongest in Outer Islands.
NU or Nahdlatul Ulama, Awakening of the Traditional Religious Scholars—

Islamic, mass base traditionalist Muslims, led by religious teachers and scholars
and landowners. Strongest in east and central Java.
PKI, Indonesian Communist Party—Communist, mass base syncretist Muslims or non-
Muslims, led by lower-level officials or teachers. Strongest in east and central Java.
1999 and 2004 (Ranked by Vote in 2004 Election)

Partai Golkar, Functional Groups Party—Secular nationalist, was state party during
Suharto’s New Order. Strongest in Outer Islands.
PDI-P, Indonesian Democracy Party-Struggle—Secular nationalist, led by
Megawati Sukarnoputri, main successor to Sukarno’s PNI. Strongest in east and
central Java and Bali.
PKB, National Awakening Party—Secular nationalist, but leadership largely tradi-
tionalist Muslims, founded by NU, led by Abdurrahman Wahid. Strongest in east
and central Java.
PPP, Development Unity Party—Islamist, including both traditionalist and mod-
ernist Muslims, originally a Suharto-era forced fusion, led by Hamzah Haz.
Scattered support in Java and Sumatra.
PD, Democratic Party—Secular nationalist, personal vehicle of President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono, founded to contest the 2004 elections. Strongest in urban areas.
PKS, Prosperous Justice Party (in 1999 PK, Justice Party)—Islamist, inspired by
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Strongest in urban areas.
PAN, National Mandate Party—Secular nationalist, but leadership infrastructure
from Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s largest modernist Muslim organization. Led
by Amien Rais. Strongest in Yogyakarta, west Sumatra.
Notes
1. For example, our 2004 second-round presidential survey data show that exposure to tele-
vision was by far the most important source of candidate information. Sixty-eight percent of
respondents said that they followed political news on television every day or often. Only 23%
and 19% listened to radio or read newspapers with the same frequency. The campaigns of the
two second-round presidential candidates, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Megawati
Sukarnoputri, had been followed on television by 60% and 57%. In contrast, only 11% said
that they got information about politics from local social organizations, 7% from influential
individuals, 4% from parties, and 4% from public meetings. Our multivariate analysis indi-
cates that exposure to presidential candidate news on television has a significant and positive
impact on opinions of leadership quality.
2. PKS was founded in 1998 as PK (Justice Party). It won only 1.4% of the 1999 vote,
below the threshhold permitting parties to compete in the subsequent election. The party
changed its name in 2003 to meet the requirements of the electoral law.
3. In his study of Russian voting, however, Colton (2000) claims that even where voters
vote for parties instead of candidates, party ID remains a distinct variable.
4. Ninety-five percent of respondents who preferred Megawati voted for her. Comparable
figures for other candidates are the following: Hamzah Haz, 75%; Amien Rais, 93%; Wiranto,
94%; and Yudhoyono, 83%.
5. In our multivariate analysis, we chose multinomial and binary logistic regression as best
suited for categorical dependent variables such as party or presidential choice (Long, 1997;
Whitten & Palmer, 1996). Unlike normal regression, the evaluation of parameters is neither
direct nor simple. The impact of an independent on a dependent variable, in regression with a
categorical dependent variable, must be read by comparing one category in the dependent vari-
able with a reference category. For that reason, the dependent variable is always accompanied by
a reference category, for example voting for PPP relative to PDI-P (Table 7) or voting for
Yudhoyono relative to Megawati (Table 10). For exploratory purposes, we only demonstrate the
statistical significance of the relationship between our independent variables and a single depen-
dent variable. Further calculation is needed to compare which among the independent variables
has the strongest or weakest probable impact on the dependent variables. This is because the sig-
nificance of the impact of the former on the latter depends on the particular pair of dependent
variables. Multiple categories and different references in the dependent variables generate many
pairs. For reasons of space, we present only two multivariate tables (Tables 7 and 8) for the leg-
islative elections with PDI-P as the reference. We hypothesized that the ostensibly secular PDI-
P would show the most (negative) influence of Muslim religiosity on political behavior. For the
same reason, we chose Megawati as the reference in the two presidential elections (Tables 9 and
10). Our demographic and societal dependent variables include national economic condition,
level of education, Muslim religiosity, age, rural–urban difference, gender, and ethnicity. In the
tables, we only report the impact of an independent variable on a dependent variable where it is
statistically significant. Complete results are available from the authors.
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Leadership, Party, and ReligionExplaining Voting Behaviorin Indonesia

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Comparative Political Studies

Explaining Voting Behavior

Keywords: Indonesia; elections; leadership; party identification; religion

Leadership, Party ID, Religion,

I n undertaking this pioneering comparative study of voting behavior in newly

independent variables. Four national opinion surveys were conducted follow-

Background: Indonesian Democracy,

Indonesian democracy was re-established in 1999 after four decades of

PNI 22.3 PDI-P 33.7 Partai Golkar 21.6

Note: Appendix B briefly describes each of these parties.

Alternative Explanations for the Vote in Indonesia

specifically religious orientation (e.g., Crouch, 1978; Effendy, 2003;

Leadership. Much historical evidence suggests that party and other

Other hypothesized factors: Party ID, ethnicity, social class, political

intensity of conducting daily prayers, fasting during the month of Ramadan,

Survey Findings: Leadership

Bivariate analysis. Indonesian voters are strongly attached to national

Those who preferred Yudhoyono also voted in significant numbers for

Generalization is obviously premature on the basis of one case, one elec-

Multivariate analysis. In the bivariate statistics, both leadership and party

factors, including Muslim religiosity, in a multivariate analysis. If party ID,

a significant and consistent impact on voting behavior in the four elections.

with the conventional wisdom that Partai Golkar is a non-Javanese party.

Analysis of survey data for four Indonesian elections demonstrates that

parties are historically associated with particular regions of the country,

Empirical measures. Our measures of leadership are expressed preference for a

NU or Nahdlatul Ulama, Awakening of the Traditional Religious Scholars—

1999 and 2004 (Ranked by Vote in 2004 Election)

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