JAKARTA, Indonesia — Tens of millions of Indonesians went to the polls on Thursday to choose a new Parliament as early and unofficial tallies indicated a victory for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party ahead of the more important presidential election in July.
Members of the Badui tribe waited Thursday to vote in Banten Province, west of Jakarta.
The voting appeared to go smoothly in most of the country, though election-related violence overnight led to at least five deaths in Papua, the eastern province that is home to a separatist movement.
A sample of votes taken by independent pollsters at the Indonesian Survey Institute gave the lead to Mr. Yudhoyono’s party, which is ranked only fifth in the current Parliament, with about a fifth of the vote. In keeping with recent trends, Islamist parties received a declining share of the vote.
The samplings of partial returns, called a “quick count” here, have accurately predicted the outcome of previous elections, but final results may not be known for weeks.
A strong showing by the Democratic Party could allow Mr. Yudhoyono, who is widely favored to be re-elected as president, to run without a coalition partner and push through more political and economic reforms in his second five-year term. But analysts said Thursday that it appeared likely that the party would have to form a coalition, and would probably speak first with its current partner, the Golkar Party of Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the Associated Press reported.
Some 38 parties competed for the support of 171 million registered voters across this sprawling archipelago. But only parties or coalitions garnering more than 25 percent of the popular vote or 20 percent of the 560 seats in Parliament can field a candidate for president.
Thursday’s election followed a mostly peaceful, three-week campaign that was marred only by violence in Aceh and the apparent manipulation of voters’ lists in some areas of the country.
At a voting station here in the capital, in the primary school once attended by President Obama, Rizki Ranudiwijaya, 28, was smoking a cigarette before casting his ballot. He said he had considered not bothering to vote because of worries over fraud, but eventually decided to go anyway.
“The campaign was not a step back for Indonesian democracy, but just part of the growing process,” Mr. Ranudiwijaya said.
At several voting stations in Jakarta, people interviewed expressed general satisfaction with Mr. Yudhoyono, in keeping with recent polls published here.
In a middle-class neighborhood here, two women said they supported him because he had made education free through high school.
“One of my grandsons goes to junior high school and has benefited from that,” said Suharsih, 68, a woman who uses only one name like many Indonesians and showed the telltale ink-stained left pinky finger of all who had voted.
Carrying another grandson in her arms, Ms. Suharsih said her family was now able to invest almost $100 a month toward the grandchildren’s college education.
A relatively smooth general election — only the third after the fall of Suharto a decade ago — should buttress the democratic credentials of Indonesia, which has surprised many by becoming one of Southeast Asia’s most stable democracies in recent years. Still, some experts have warned that the country’s hard-won democracy could be jeopardized by election-year trickery.
“This election should be a milestone for Indonesian democracy,” said Mohammed Qodari, executive director of Indo Barometer, a company that conducts political surveys and analysis. “If a country has gone through free and fair elections for more than two times, it can be considered a democracy. That’s why this election is even more important than the last two ones.
“Unfortunately, the administration of the election this year has been of lower quality than the two previous ones,” Mr. Qodari said, citing the reported manipulation of voters’ lists as well as a new, potentially confusing voting system.
In one middle-class neighborhood, Bambang Utoro, 58, and his wife Ati Herawati, 54, were turned away from the voting station after being told that they were not registered. Still, Mr. Utoro was more baffled by someone who made the list.
“My father passed away 14 years ago, but he was on that list,” Mr. Utoro said. “It’s very strange.”
If the early and unofficial results prove accurate, Mr. Yudhoyono will have succeeded in transforming the Democratic Party into the nation’s biggest player. In 2004, as his party won only 7 percent of the seats in Parliament, Mr. Yudhoyono was forced to form an alliance with the Golkar Party as well as smaller Islamic parties.
Though Mr. Yudhoyono is often criticized for being overly cautious, his reliance on Golkar — which was the ruling party during the Suharto era, has the greatest number of seats in the current Parliament and has close ties to business groups, the civil service and other branches of government — is believed to have hindered his push for reforms. In addition, his ties to Islamic parties led Mr. Yudhoyono, a backer of secular government, to support a so-called anti-pornography bill that could curb the practice of everything from yoga to traditional dances.
At one voting station, Jati, a 62-year-old businessman in ceramics, said he hoped that Mr. Yudhoyono’s party would win enough seats so that the president would be re-elected without having to rely on other parties.
“He can govern the way he thinks is right instead of compromising with other interests,” Mr. Jati said.