In Unity Bid, Indonesian Assembly Chooses Megawati as Vice President

A day after denying her the presidency, the Indonesian assembly elected Megawati Sukarnoputri vice president Thursday in a bid to restore national unity.

The largely ceremonial post has taken on added significance because the man who defeated Megawati for president, Abdurrahman Wahid, is partly blind, has suffered two strokes and is so frail that he needs help to rise from a chair.

The health of the 59-year-old president aside, the Wahid-Megawati team is an unusual choice to lead the world’s fourth most populous nation into the 21st century. Neither has previously held elected public office, neither has articulated a blueprint for Indonesia’s future, neither has shown much previous interest in politics. Megawati does not have a college degree.

But though Megawati, 52, comes from a privileged background as the daughter of founding President Sukarno, she is hugely popular among the disenfranchised masses. Her election was clearly designed to quell unrest in the streets and rebuild a sense of common purpose in this diverse and fractured country of about 13,000 islands and more than 200 million people.

Her supporters, joined by bands of jobless thugs, had rampaged through this capital and at least 12 other cities Wednesday after Wahid was elected president by the 700-member People’s Consultative Assembly. There were widespread fears of renewed violence if she didn’t get the No. 2 spot, especially because her Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle was the top vote-getter in June’s election for the assembly, with 34% of the popular vote.

Just before the vice presidential ballot, two influential figures--Gen. Wiranto, chief of the armed forces, and Akbar Tanjung, chairman of the Golkar party--withdrew their candidacies, citing the need for national unity. That left Megawati to face Hamzah Haz, chairman of the Muslim-oriented United Development Party. She defeated Haz handily, 396 to 284.

“I thank God for this, and I will do my best for the republic of Indonesia,” she said as assembly members cheered the outcome and sang the national anthem.

Ironically, the organizations that Wiranto and Tanjung represent provided the swing votes Wednesday that earned Wahid his upset victory.

Golkar, which did not field a presidential candidate after then-President B. J. Habibie withdrew following a no-confidence vote early Wednesday in the assembly, gave Wahid about 150 of its 185 votes, legislative sources said. The military, which holds 38 non-elected assembly seats, gave him 27 votes. The two crucial blocks helped Wahid build his margin of victory.

Many party leaders Thursday cited Megawati’s unwillingness to campaign or build coalitions through negotiation as a major reason for her defeat. “You could see the arrogance in her party’s speeches and statements,” assembly member Priyo Santoso said.

Megawati also faced some resistance because of her gender. According to opinion polls before the election, 10% of the largely Muslim electorate did not think a woman should be head of state. Some conservative Islamic parties openly protested her candidacy.

The two days of election drama have sent financial markets on a roller-coaster ride. They soared when Habibie withdrew, apparently reflecting a widespread belief that a new team was needed to end corruption and get the economy back on track.

They fell with Wahid’s election, apparently because of his ill health, and rallied as Megawati’s victory signaled the likelihood that civil disorder would diminish. Share prices on the stock exchange jumped 5% on Thursday, and the rupiah, the local currency, rose sharply.

Jakarta and most other cities were calm Thursday after days of demonstrations that were sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent. Shopping malls and many stores and offices remained closed, their entrances blocked by iron gates or barricades strung with barbed wire.

But violence continued on the resort island of Bali, a Megawati stronghold that rarely faces civil unrest. Mobs protesting her loss of the presidency burned buildings and blocked roads in Denpasar, the provincial capital. There were no reports of injuries, and residents reached by phone from Jakarta said the situation had returned to normal late Thursday after Indonesia flew in a battalion of troops from the island of Java.

Wahid’s first order of business will be to form a Cabinet, which is expected to be one of reconciliation, representing a spectrum of political loyalties. Few, if any, of the ministers who were cycled through the administrations of Presidents Suharto--who ruled for 32 years until he was forced from power in May 1998--and Habibie are likely to be included.

Thus far, the international community has reacted favorably to Indonesia’s new leadership. Said Michel Camdessus, chief of the International Monetary Fund: “Indonesia has enormous economic potential which the IMF is determined to help the new government fully realize.”