At the intensive care unit of Jakarta's MMC hospital, a shaking driver was waiting for news about his boss. An employee at a consultancy firm, she was at an early meeting at the Mariott hotel when a bomb went off there on Friday morning. The driver heard the explosion. "Luckily I was parked outside the hotel grounds, or else I might have been killed," he said.

Three Dutch injured

Outside the intensive care family and friends of the wounded were anxiously waiting as nurses wheeled another victim into an operation theatre, his face unrecognisable from the blood and injuries. Two women burst into tears at the sight of a colleague.

Among the eight dead and 52 wounded were many foreigners. Two Dutch citizens who live in Jakarta were being treated at MMC's intensive care unit. According to the Dutch foreign ministry a third Dutch person was also wounded.

At the two hotels where bombs went off on Friday morning within minutes of each other, hotel guests were still being evacuated.

Manchester United

The Ritz-Carlton was supposed to host the Manchester United football team on Saturday, in town for a match against an Indonesian team which the whole of Jakarta had been looking forward to. On Friday, the back of the hotel was a gaping hole offering a view of the Erlangga cafe where the bomb exploded. At the Mariott, only thirty metres down the road, windows were shattered by a bomb that exploded in the same restaurant where another bomb went off in 2003, killing twelve people.

The bombing at the Ritz-Carlton was allegedly the work of a suicide bomber; the one at the Mariott wasn't. Three other, unexploded bombs were found by police at the Mariott complex. One was hidden in an office, another in a hotel room.

The mood in Jakarta on Friday was depressed. "I'm very disappointed," said nasi vendor Susyanto. "They did this at a time when the whole world was watching Indonesia because of Manchester United, to have an even bigger impact. They've given Indonesia a bad name." And the economy was just starting to pick up again, he said. "Now I expect it will go downhill again."

Political accusations

Indonesia had been looking forward to a period of peace and progress, just one week after presidential elections had put it on a map as a successful democracy. Investors welcomed the re-election of president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, expected to bring stability and economic reform. Banks predicted Indonesia would soon join the so-called 'BRIC', the emerging economies of China, Russia, India and Brazil. As a member of the G20 it was keen on playing a bigger role on the international stage.

"Everything we've built with difficulty in the past five years has been jeopardised," president Yudhoyono said in a speech on Friday morning. "These bombs disturb the peace and security at a time when the Indonesians long for a peaceful existence." He said the bombings were likely to have an effect on the economy, the business climate, tourism and Indonesia's image in the rest of the world.

With the bombings coming so shortly after the president election, many see a political motive. Yudhoyono won the election according to preliminary results, but the official result will only be announced next week. Yudhoyono himself hinted at a connection with the elections when he said there were indications of a plot to trigger a 'revolution' as soon as the election result became official. There was hardly any mention of the possibility that Muslim terrorists could have been behind the bombings, as was the case with earlier bombings in Indonesia.

President Yudhoyono's rivals were sceptical about his allegations. Jusuf Kulla, who came in third place last week, said he didn't believe the bombs were connected to the election. "Neither Megawati nor I could have done this because it takes time to prepare something like this," he said. Former general Prabowo, who was Megawati's running mate, also said the president was exaggerating.

Earlier bomb attacks in Indonesia were the work of the radical Muslim group Jema'ah Islamiyah. In October 2002, 202 people were killed when three bombs exploded at nightclubs on Bali, many of them foreign tourists. In August 2003, twelve people were killed at the Jakarta Mariott, including one Dutch person. The last major attack was on Bali in October 2005 when 23 people were killed including the three suicide bombers. It is thought that Jema'ah Islamiyah has been weakened because of a series of arrests.