Indonesia votes in general election
Suharto's resignation amid protests and financial ruin after three decades in power heralded the start of the "Reformasi" era of political change, and Thursday's vote is seen as another key test for Indonesia's young democracy.
"Our polling stations are now open for the Indonesian elections. We are waiting for voters to arrive," said electoral official Enos, of Timika in the far eastern province of Papua.
The mainly Muslim country's 171 million eligible voters are being asked to choose between thousands of candidates on local, provincial and national levels, across 520,000 polling booths and some 6,000 inhabited islands.
Polls opened at 7am (2200 GMT Wednesday) in Papua after a night of unrest amid calls for independence and a boycott of the vote.
Police shot dead a man as about 100 people armed with arrows and bombs attacked a police post after midnight. An office in a university and a fuel depot were also set ablaze.
"The incidents ... indicate that there are people who want the elections to fail," Papua police chief Bagus Ekodanto said.
Pro-independence sentiment runs high in Papua, which sits on the western end of New Guinea island and is populated mainly by ethnic Melanesians.
Papua and western Aceh province – where a three-decade separatist war ended in 2005 – are two hot spots for potential trouble during the election but most analysts predict the day will pass in relative peace.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party is leading most opinion polls, well ahead of its more established rivals in the main opposition Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Golkar, Suharto's former ruling party.
A survey published by the Indonesian Survey Institute on Sunday gave the Democrats 26.6 per cent support compared with 14.5 for the PDI-P of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri and 13.7 for Golkar.
If the polls are correct the vote will be a major victory for liberal ex-general Yudhoyono and the party he founded in 2001, and will put him on course for re-election as head of state in July.
Thirty eight parties – loosely divided along nationalist and religious lines – are competing for spots in the 560-seat House of Representatives but most will fail to win the required minimum of 2.5 per cent of the vote.
"We'll see the burial of many small parties," Denny Januar Ali of the Indonesian Survey Circle, a polling and research agency, said this week.
Maintaining growth in the face of the global financial meltdown is the main issue on voters' minds, along with endemic corruption that infects all levels of society.
Southeast Asia's biggest economy is expected to avoid recession but its exports are plunging, foreign investment is drying up and millions of poor Indonesians are struggling to stay above the poverty line.
As voters focus on worldly concerns, support for Islamic parties has declined to an all-time low in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, according to opinion polls.
None has polled above five percent in opinion surveys, although they are still likely to be players in post-election coalition jostling which will decide which parties can choose candidates for the more important presidential elections.
Party campaigns have been characterised by vote buying, empty sloganeering and speeches punctuated by sing-alongs and pop music performances.
The absence of any serious policy debate is reflected in survey figures showing as many as 25 per cent of voters are undecided and many more could spoil their ballot papers.
Polls close at midday across the country's various time zones. Unofficial projections are expected in the early afternoon but official results may not be known for days.
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