The party of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri lost major ground in parliamentary polls, reflecting unpopularity that threatens her chances of re-election in July, official tallies showed on Wednesday.
Golkar, the party of former strongman president Suharto, took 21.6 percent of the vote, down slightly from the 22.5 percent it won in the 1999 parliamentary election.
Megawati's Indonesia Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) came second, winning 18.5 percent, compared with the 33.7 percent it won five years ago.
Although Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, both parties are secular. The results of the April 5 vote point to a government that will continue to endorse economic reform and oppose violent militant Islamic groups.
However, implementing policy could be tough, analysts say.
"Golkar has the leading position and now must find partners, which won't be an easy task," Muhammad Budhyatna, a political analyst from the University of Indonesia, told Reuters. "The structure of the parliament will be amorphous and I think they won't produce any significant progress."
Golkar won 128 seats in the 550-member parliament, up from 120 in 1999, while PDI-P took 109, down from 153.
With no party close to a majority, the stage is set for Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, to continue with a coalition government after a new president is elected.
In the race for president, both Megawati and Golkar's nominee, ex-military chief Wiranto, are lagging in opinion polls behind another former general, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Yudhoyono is the candidate of the Democrat Party, which came in fifth with 7.5 percent, a respectable showing for a new party, and took 57 or 10.4 percent of the seats, making it the fourth biggest in parliament.
Indonesia has a complex election system and parliamentary representation does not precisely reflect percentages of the popular vote.
Indonesia votes for a president on July 5. All three main candidates have similar platforms promising economic reform and opposition to terrorism, as well as Islamic Sharia law.
Most Muslim-oriented parties did worse or no better than in 1999, except for the Prosperous Justice Party, which favours conservative Islamic policies but put more emphasis in the campaign on an anti-corruption and pro-economic growth stance.
It drew 7.3 percent of the vote, up from 1.4 percent in 1999, and will have 45 parliamentary seats.
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