THE rain over North Jakarta's Sunda Kelapa harbor, built in 1610, died down just before midnight on Tuesday last week. Two VIP patrol boats approached the Hati Buana Setia, a traditional cargo sailboat known as a pinisi, moored at Dock No. 9. Percussion music could be heard and colorful lights shone around the area.

GOLKAR Party members packed the hall of the Perintis Kemerdekaan Building in Jakarta, last week. The air-conditioning was unable to compete with the heat which filtered in through the doors, which were kept opening and closing. Eleven senior members sat in a row under a map of Indonesia at the front of the hall.

MEGAWATI Soekarnoputri wiped away tears of joy. On the porch of her house in South Jakarta, last week, a television station was broadcasting exit poll results on the presidential election. The chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) burst into tears when the broadcaster declared Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla were ahead of the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa ticket.

The speech by Democrat Party Chairman Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) at the party's national leadership meeting last May, was a signal of support for the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa ticket. "SBY said that he had approached Megawati for more than five years, but he got nowhere," said a Democrat Party politician, last week, referring to the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) head, Megawati Soekarnoputri.

AT the Amanatul Ummah Islamic Boarding School in Pacet, Mojokerto, East Java, thousands of copies of a tabloidwith a cartoon of Joko Widodo on the cover done in the style of the Tintin comicwere distributed. The name of the tabloid is Pelayan Rakyat (People's Servant). "It is free and enlightening and not misleading," said vice-presidential candidate Jusuf Kalla (JK), who received a round of applause from the students in attendance, on Monday night last week.