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ast week’s brouhaha surrounding Prabowo Subianto made interesting reading. His support and that of his Great Indonesian Movement (Gerindra) Party undoubtedly influenced the Jokowi-Ahok victory in the Jakarta race. But the response to any self-generated kudos threatened to fracture the Gerindra-PDI-P coalition. That’s now been smoothed over, this week. If all is well indeed, the current leader in the presidential race will still be in the running.

The Golkar party’s candidate Aburizal Bakrie continues to trail the leader, by approximately 2 percentage points month after month. That puts the two leading candidates within the standard 3 percent margin of error in most polls. With the three leading parties reiterating their intention to keep the current regulations in place, it now seems inevitable that only the three major parties will be nominating candidates for the presidential race. We know two of the horses in what is most likely to be a three-horse race. We know who their sponsors will be. The big question now is who the Democratic Party’s nominee?

Two years away from voting day, there is still time for that choice to be announced. But not much time. That’s because President Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party has no other clear contender to rely on, at this juncture. And two years is barely enough to give that third horse a real chance to pick up the tempo. With all other hopefuls in single-digits today, credentials will have to be built.

That takes time and effort. Despite its dwindling popularity, the battered Democrats remain in the lead as a party. Despite his plummeting personal fortunes, the President is still the most popular leader in the country. Blessed by him and his party, any candidate he anoints will have a distinct advantage. If that presidential nominee has no baggage, so much the easier. If the running mate complements the presidential nominee, so much the better.

Commissioned by the Asia Pacific Association of Political Consultants (APAPC), Roy Morgan Research is polling every week across the country and releasing the results every month. For the purpose of this column, three months of interviews were combined to add up to more than 6,000 respondents, a robust sample by any yardstick. There was no material difference with the results that emerged for August, consequent to the 2,016 interviews conducted within the 30 days. In other words, the picture for the period June-August is a stronger reconfirmation of voting intentions today.

As the accompanying chart illustrates, that picture reinforces the position of the three leading parties. All the others will at best serve as coalition partners. If they collectively tried to cobble two running mates together, the patchwork would be riddled with too many conflicting interests and render it unwieldy from the very outset. The trouble with the current situation was highlighted by this week’s black comedy. The Cabinet secretary outing a list of “bad boys and girls” seemed to have earned the ire of only the Golkar party, allegedly the most corrupt of all parties. Does that mean that being the second or third-most corrupt is acceptable to all concerned? The conversations being aired make a mockery of the dire straits the country is in, ethically and commercially.

The voter is disgusted with endemic and systemic corruption continuing unabated and unaddressed. But their elected representatives seem content for the pot to call the kettle black. Or blacker, to be more precise. Nobody seems interested in tackling this all-embracing challenge facing the nation. No party seems keen to fight this most important of fights, embroiled as they all appear to be. If this is proof of democracy at work, Indonesia is heading for difficulties its leaders will have imposed on their people. Corruption is keeping the public short-changed, with critical investments in just about every aspect of life awaiting action from the powers that be.

The fact that the economy continues to steam on is no surprise, with consumers turning the wheels. But the average citizen benefits little from the country’s immense natural wealth, pocketed in the main by the country’s elite. Indonesia’s future could be so much brighter if attention was being paid to STEM: science, technology, engineering and math. These are critical pillars for nation-building. And these are the pillars that keep Indonesia shaky at the core. If the political rot is allowed to set in this new democracy, if corruption is left unattended, the task of building a better future will become even more difficult than it is today.

The APAPC poll is conducted by Roy Morgan Research. Over 2,000 respondents are interviewed each month in 17 provinces across the country. These provinces are home to 87 percent of the population.

The writer can be contacted at debnath.guharoy@roymorgan.com