Indonesians will have a second chance to vote in July, when we directly choose our president for just the second time in our entire history.
As the quick count of ballots from last week's legislative elections have wrapped up and the official tally plods on, people may begin to seriously consider their choices for July - unless efforts to file lawsuits on behalf of the disenfranchised leads to the election being delayed.
The personal choice in July is so far obvious - just vote for or against the leader in the tallies, the Democratic Party of incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Or vote neither.
Like many others, a neighbor who voted for the Democratic Party said she hoped that "corruption will continue to be reduced, so those who get wealthy are not only the rich"; she apparently will also vote for SBY.
For now, let's consider the incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, if only to share the hopes of all those who voted for the Democrats (so far over 20 percent of voters).
The major turn-on for voters like my neighbor was the visible fight against graft under SBY's term - so he might like to know a few things that turn one off. Especially the estimated 84.7 million women voters, or over half the current eligible 171 million voters (unfortunately still including the dead and those born in 2044).
Main clue: Women like to be treated as citizens, as equal human beings.
To win their hearts the male contestant must show gallantry; and the female needs to exude solidarity, knowing what her sisters feel.
On this note Hillary Clinton broke the highest glass ceiling in the United States, becoming the country's first female presidential candidate from a major political party.
Gallantry and solidarity mean knowing full well that women don't like to be the carrot traded between the powers that be and the chauvinist little kings.
Many women still love doors to be opened for them - but are indignant when you tell them that because women are noble and need protection from exploitation we need to issue bylaws and rules on what women should wear, to avoid the nation's further plunge into moral decadence.
This can be baffling.
Many women support such regulations, feeling that it's a first step towards a secure society in their townships and regions. But SBY could just ask his wife whether she would appreciate a night curfew, made possible in a number of areas as SBY turned a blind eye to the creativity of regional autonomy.
It is a serious turn-off when our president does not raise a finger against local laws which regulate what women wear and how they should behave.
Just as while Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is handsome, news of his recent law implying the wives' obligation to sexually serve their men makes him just like any other puny male.
So for SBY- and his rivals, including the one woman among them - the message is that we love your efforts to wipe out corruption, but tolerating discriminative local rules just because they touch on "only cultural" aspects, in the words of his home minister, is unacceptable.
For any Indonesian leader, securing the support of the Islamic-based parties - who reflect the dominant faith but not necessarily aspirations of the faithful - is naturally crucial. But if he is re-elected, SBY, our first Ph.D-president, would be truly insulting us if he doesn't show better ability to draw the line between regional autonomy and the fundamental national consensus mandated by the Constitution. It doesn't sound very moral or consitutional when a modern Indonesia allows a woman to be arrested just because she wasn't wearing a veil.
And if SBY is looking for allies among the Islamic-based parties, the nation-wide tallies clearly show how many of us are really interested in such parties.
True, the issue of morality was an easy sell to draw votes in local elections. Many an elected ruler drew up bylaws to make the area Islami (in line with Muslim values).
It is not clear if the level of corruption has immediately dropped, in line with God's commandment of "Thou shalt not steal", in the areas touted as Islami.
What is more clear has been the copy pasting of regulations in several areas which give officials the right to pick up women whose behavior is deemed "suspicious" in the dark of night.
Women workers, including myself, who cannot make it home well before dusk are made nervous in their own hometowns - as if we were in wartime or surrounded by pillaging gangsters.
Citizens deserve to take security and peace of mind for granted. If women can be surer that the elected president can guarantee this, SBY can be confident that he will get many more of almost 85 million votes of female citizens.
If he does this he can surely count on mine - but that's a big If.
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