...Indonesia is a multiparty presidential democracy. Parliamentary and presidential elections take place every five years. In 2004 the president and the vice-president were elected by direct popular vote for the first time. The next elections are due in 2009. There are two large secular-nationalist parties, Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), and a smaller party, the Democrat Party (PD), which together account for nearly 50% of seats in the legislature. Parties with an Islamic orientation account for about 25% of seats. The president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, currently presides over a loose, and sometimes fractious, coalition of parties, which includes Golkar. The PDI-P is the largest party in opposition. New parties emerge in the 2004 elections. April 2004 saw the second parliamentary election since the downfall of Soeharto, and the first under a new constitutional framework. In an orderly and relatively transparent poll, the electorate voted for members of the 550-seat...
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