Leadership, Party, and Religion: Explaining Voting Behavior in Indonesia

Abstract

This case study tests the significance of leadership, party identification, religious orientation, political economy, and sociological and demographic factors in the legislative and presidential choices of voters in the new Indonesian democracy. Data were obtained from four national opinion surveys conducted by the authors following parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2004 and the two-round presidential election in 2004. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of our data confirm the significance of leadership and party ID and the nonsignificance for the most part of other variables tested, including religious orientation, long the most popular explanation for the Indonesian case.