eyes of voters. Given that the party that had come fourth, the Indonesian Communist Party, had been banned in the aftermath of the 30 September Movement coup attempt in 1965, that left only the Nahdatul Ulama (NU) as a major rival. Kopkamtib head General Sumitro later said that without the intervention from ABRI, Golkar would have lost the election to the Muslim parties. Away from the political parties, civil servants were effectively obliged to vote Golkar and regional administrators were required to fulfill "quotas" of Golkar votes. The system of allocating seats was changed from that of the 1955 election to reduce the number of parties winning seats in the legislature. All seats were to be allocated in the regional electoral districts, rather than being divided up based on national results. The government also disqualified large numbers of candidates from the political parties. Hardest hit was the PNI, with 171 disqualifications leaving it with 506 candidates. Parsumi lost 141, and the NU lost 24 candidates. Results The results were officially announced on 7 August. Golkar won 227 of the 251 directly elected seats in the DPR as well as all nine indirectly elected seats in Western New Guinea. Golkar was also awarded the remaining 100 seats according to the provisions of the 1969 Election Law, giving it 336, almost three quarters of the total. Aftermath Immediately before the election, a Golkar spokesman stated that he expected Golkar to win no more than 35 percent of the vote. Predictions from the other parties were for up to 100 seats from the PNI, up to 79 seats from Parmusi, 35 from Parkindo and 20 from Murba. Only the NU was anywhere close with its prediction of 65 seats, and it was the only party to do better than it had in the 1955 election. The Golkar landslide meant that a proportional representation system had produced a government party with a majority in the legislature. More important was the fact that the Indonesian military, through Golkar, had become a participant in parliamentary politics. In 1973, the MPR comprising the membership of the new DPR together with the appointed regional, functional and social representatives, re-elected Suharto to the presidency. A year before the election, President Suharto had said that he wanted the political parties to join in two groups, one religious and one nationalist. This led to the establishment in March 1970 of the