Indonesia Quiet After Political Turmoil Passes

For Indonesians, Friday was the first day of the post-Suharto era, and what they saw was unusual. No protests swirled in the streets of Jakarta. No politicians warned of doomsday scenarios. No economists spoke of financial ruin.

Indonesia, in fact, was quiet, calm and weary, as though suffering from system overload after nearly two years of social, economic and political upheaval. “It’s like the springs are sticking out of the mattress,” one Western diplomat said.

City crews began cleaning up from a spasm of election-week riots--damage was estimated at $18 million--and shopping malls reopened after being shuttered for three days. And Indonesia’s new president, Abdurrahman Wahid, an ailing Muslim cleric not known for pomp or formality, was receiving his first visitors.

“He asked us to maintain our regular manner,” said Mustofa Bisri, an official with a leading Muslim organization.

So Bisri wore sandals to the meeting and Wahid sat barefoot. At Wahid’s request, Bisri called him not Mr. President but Gus, an honorific Islamic title, or Mas, a respectful Indonesian term that roughly means brother.

Wahid is one of the few Indonesians whose rise to prominence was not based on an association with or opposition to former President Suharto, now 78 and living in self-imposed isolation after his fall from power in May 1998 and a stroke. Whatever Wahid’s shortcomings in management skill and political expertise may be, no one doubts that he is his own man.

Suharto influenced Indonesian affairs for the past 34 years, either through his own iron-fisted rule or through surrogate loyalists in the administration of his handpicked successor, President B. J. Habibie. With Wahid’s election Wednesday and Megawati Sukarnoputri’s selection Thursday as vice president, Indonesia has clearly embarked on a new course with two leaders not wedded to its authoritarian past.

“The most important thing about the election is that politicians have accepted the rules of the game,” said Anand Aithal, a regional analyst with Goldman Sachs in Singapore. “It’s when they don’t accept the rules that countries break down.

“I think initially the markets are going to give Wahid and Megawati the benefit of the doubt,” Aithal added. “But thereafter there is going to be some caution. The reform agenda in Indonesia is enormous and complicated.”

As unlikely as it now seems, the reform movement that ushered in the post-Suharto era began in January 1998 as a small protest of university students over the rise in the price of staple foods. Virtually no one paid any attention.

But the economic protests led to demonstrations over a lack of political freedom, which led to a heavy-handed crackdown by Suharto’s military. The middle class then sided with the students in calls for Suharto’s overthrow. He resigned, having parlayed his $1,200-a-month salary into a fortune reportedly worth billions of dollars.

Despite Habibie’s efforts to institute democratic reforms, he remained tainted by links to Suharto and was viewed by most Indonesians as an illegitimate president. Habibie says he is finished with elected politics and will spend his time promoting human rights and democracy. He too has accumulated a huge fortune.

The International Monetary Fund cut off disbursements from its $43-billion rescue package to Indonesia because of a bank scandal in which the opposition said--and Habibie denied--that about $70 million was channeled to Habibie’s Golkar party to buy votes for his presidential bid. The IMF indicated Friday that it might resume payments if the Wahid administration made public a damning investigative report on the scandal and took steps to remedy any wrongdoing.