Dr Vannessa Hearman
This is the first time that Indonesia will go to the polls to elect members for four levels of legislative bodies (national and regional) and the president.
The simultaneous elections seem to have already led to greater interest in the presidential contest.
The contest is a re-run in some ways of the presidential elections in 2014 – same candidates, the incumbent Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) and former Army Special Forces Commander, Prabowo Subianto (former son-in-law of ex-President Suharto).
But this time around voters have seen Jokowi in action as a president.
He has prioritised infrastructure development, such as toll roads and a new mass transit system recently opened in Jakarta.
It is likely Jokowi will win, and this is confirmed by many polls.
Part of the reason for his winning a second term will be that he has been careful not to attack elite interests in Indonesia, including by refusing to tackle grave human rights abuses from the authoritarian Suharto era.
Instead, Jokowi has appointed as minister for politics and security the former armed forces commander, Wiranto, who was indicted by the United Nations in 2003 for human rights abuses in East Timor, now Timor Leste.
His rival, Prabowo Subianto, was stood down from the Army Special Forces after being implicated in the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists in 1997-98, some of whom have never been found.
What is new in these elections, though, is a climate of hostility to Indonesia’s minorities, such as non-Muslims and LGBT people, with both candidates courting the Muslim vote.
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