Indonesia sets new rules for presidential elections

By Telly Nathalia and Olivia Rondonuwu

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia set new rules on Wednesday for next year's elections, which could make it harder for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a reformist ex-general who currently tops the opinion polls, to be re-elected.

The presidential election bill passed by parliament states that, in order to field a presidential candidate, a political party or bloc of parties must win a quarter of the votes in the April parliamentary elections, or one fifth of the seats.

Yudhoyono, with 32 percent backing in recent opinion polls, heads the tiny Democrat Party, with support of just 11 percent.

That means he will either need to secure the backing of Golkar, one of the country's two big parties, or of a coalition of smaller, mainly Islamist parties.

Yudhoyono's chief rival, former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, has the backing of 24 percent of those polled.

Other presidential contenders, including two former generals from the Suharto era, Wiranto and Prabowo Subianto, as well as the Sultan of Yogyakarta, each have less than 10 percent support.

The bill has been the subject of much heated debate as the two biggest parties, Golkar and Megawati's PDI-P, both wanted a much higher threshold for fielding a presidential candidate, while the myriad smaller parties wanted a low threshold.

Golkar, the political machine set up by the late president Suharto, backed Yudhoyono in the 2004 presidential elections but has indicated it wants to field one of its own leaders next year.