From ABC News
By Indonesia correspondent George Roberts, Mon 9 Jun 2014,
In a few weeks Indonesia will go to the polls to vote for a new president.
The current incumbent, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has to step down later this year after two terms.
There are only two candidates now running in a winner-takes-all race between Jakarta governor Joko Widodo and his opponent Prabowo Subianto.
Widodo, also known as Jokowi, is leading the polls, but his opponent Prabowo is the real showman of the two.
And as correspondent George Roberts reports, presidential elections in Indonesia are a spectacle on a scale never seen in Australia.
Cast your mind back to last year's Australian election. Can you imagine Tony Abbott or Kevin Rudd riding into an arena on horseback to the cheer of thousands of supporters?
A few weeks ago the former Lieutenant-General Prabowo did just that in an overt display of nationalistic bravado.
Recently both candidates managed to gridlock a key part of central Jakarta just by going to register for the election.
Jokowi's group gridlocked the suburb with followers cheering and drumming as he and his team pedalled bicycles across town.
For the media, there was a lot of jostling as elbows nudged ribs and video journalists hip-and-shouldered each other out of the way.
There is not much of the well-behaved, coordinated campaign-trail behaviour that you see in Australia. But ultimately we reached the election commission gates, we were allowed in, and Jokowi's supporters stayed outside.
The next day it was Prabowo Subianto's band, literally, of merry supporters who really showed any future presidential hopefuls how to make an entrance.
He is backed by more media muscle and billionaire dollars. His campaign also seems to be running a more military-style operation, appropriate for a former special forces commander.
The mood was one of celebration as the band and other supporters marched to the election commission to lodge their bid.
There were men dressed as the Indonesian mythical eagles, or Garudas, banging drums, others dressed as mascot tigers playing instruments, and hundreds more people scrambled to see Prabowo and his team. A ring of security formed a chain around them to hold back the crowd.
At the gates of the commission some other journalists and I asked to be let in and flashed our media passes.
But the rows of police refused. They were more focused on the rowdy group of people coming up behind us.
The ABC's cameraman in Jakarta, David Anderson, has covered more than his fair share of Indonesian election rallies, but it even took him by surprise.
We had got a position early, next to the gate, for his ladder so he could get an aerial of Prabowo walking in.
But once Prabowo did walk in, the mood changed. Perhaps they were whipped up into a frenzy by the band or they were unaware that they were not allowed in. Either way, mob mentality suddenly took over.
The street was already littered with scooters, cars, street vendors' carts, TV links trucks and cables running across the ground.
There were already obstacles.
But add to that a mob of supporters who had started to push towards an immovable object, and it spells trouble.
Dave had suddenly disappeared from his elevated position. It turns out he was swept up in the crowd and surfed the ladder along for a while before tumbling down.
Two police officers were the only cushioning between me and the walls of the commission. We were pinned there by people pushing forwards towards the closed gate next to me.
One of the young police recruits started screaming in the crush, and as the pressure on our bodies intensified, the thought crossed my mind that this is how people get crushed in football stadium stampedes.
The thought also occurred to me that I should start filming and get out of there.
So with one arm in the air filming on my smart phone, I started pushing back against the scrum, and squeezing between bodies until I broke free from the nucleus of the rabble. Dave did the same, and we retreated to about 50 metres down the road.
There, dripping in sweat from the stifling heat and humidity of Jakarta, we decided that sometimes the close-up shots are not really the best anyway.
There will be plenty more election rallies to cover over the next few weeks too. Next time we will be planning an escape route and watching for signs that the crowd might turn.
*
ma 9 jun 2014 - 23:42