Agence France Presse

Jakarta, June 1:

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri today advised wavering voters to select the prettiest candidate in the July 5 elections. “I’ve heard complaints voters are confused because there are too many candidates,” she said in an off-the-cuff speech. “Why confused? Just vote for the prettiest one,” she said, to the cheers of some 2,000 supporters.

Megawati is the only woman among five candidates in the country’s first direct presidential election. The others are two former generals, her ex-security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and former military chief Wiranto; her curent vice-president Hamzah Haz; and national assembly chairman Amien Rais. Megawati, a daughter of the country’s first president Sukarno, was speaking at a ceremony marking the declaration by her father in 1945 of the state ideology known as Pancasila. Support for her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle slumped dramatically in the April 5 legislative election. The polls were won by Golkar, which backed former dictator Suharto.