Indonesia and Australia: mates no more?

They are backed by churches, non-government organizations and an active separatist lobby. These groups may be small, but they are shrill and usually get traction in the media.

Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is still leading the polls. As president he'd have no blood on his hands and would likely find friends everywhere in Australia. He's already been to West Papua and promised access by foreign media, though that pledge could be thwarted by the military. However unless he lifts his game significantly in the next few weeks chances are he'll be overtaken.

This hasn't been the campaign for Prabowo to win but for Jokowi to lose.

Two months ago the then Jakarta Governor was the media darling far in front of any rival, his popularity founded on his humble man-of-the-people image, something the arrogant Prabowo has always lacked.

Metro, the TV station backing Jokowi, regularly shows him cycling to the office and inspecting roadworks alongside clips of Prabowo in helicopters and limos.

It's a programming policy that's backfiring; television audiences don't see Barack Obama crawling out of manholes after sewer inspections. The US President waves from the doorways of Air Force One as world leaders gather below to pay homage. Prabowo's not there yet, but choppering into rallies helps craft the image.

For the older generation of Indonesians, presidents carried an aura of ruthless authority, a presence that tolerates no questioning. If they did step into a selected crowd it was to show the peasants how to do things properly, like plant rice.

Prabowo's contrived appearances in military style garb, riding a Palomino, standing tall in jeeps, hectoring crowds, reinforce that return to the past. Stories of his bullying and temper are widespread.

The man is an iron-clad product of the 32-year Soeharto era of shameless patronage, gross corruption and total authoritarianism. Like all soldiers he's been trained to give and take orders, to see enemies and eliminate them. He's a hawk in the Dick Cheney eyrie.

Prabowo wears the freshly tailored camouflage of democracy only to win office. He's a life member of the unreconstructed elite that controls the nation through an incestuous network of patronage. Orde Baru (Soeharto's New Order administration born in 1965) never really died when the old man stepped down in 1998, it just hibernated awhile.

For a thorough analysis of Prabowo's past read Gerry van Klinken's piecein Inside Indonesia http://www.insideindonesia.org/current-edition/prabowo-and-human-rights

By contrast Jokowi is just a self-made businessman from a provincial town who has done well in local government. He seems to genuinely want reform, though finds his Mental Revolution philosophy hard to articulate. His mates don't carry guns or shout orders, his relatives aren't married to generals.