AROUND election times, politics seems to be just a longing for leaders. Consciously or no, in the election posters, in all the talk about "who" (and not "what") will win, something ancient is there: something from a time when kings and brahmans were considered to possess noble qualities to make a country panjang punjung, vast and great, like the shadow-puppet play description.

Even older than the Javanese puppeteer's depic