Word: indonesia
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...concede, Yudhoyono is widely expected to take the helm of the world's fourth-most-populous country and largest Muslim nation on Oct. 20. The challenges ahead could make even a hard-boiled general like Yudhoyono blanche. Over the past six years, since the 1998 fall of dictator Suharto, Indonesia has been losing ground on several fronts, beset by civil strife, separatist movements and terrorism. Just 11 days before the election, suicide bombers detonated explosives outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, killing nine and wounding 182. Earlier this year, the military undertook a brutal crackdown on Islamic separatists...
...that he would be more resolute than the uncommunicative Megawati. Maintaining civil order is a high priority for the incoming administration. But during his five-year term, Yudhoyono's political fate may well depend less on guns than it does on butter?on how successful he is in improving Indonesia's battered economy. His mandate, after all, comes from citizens like Riza and the estimated 40 million other workers either unemployed or without as much work as they need. Megawati "wasted her political capital because of bad economic policy," says Dradjad Wibowo, senior economist at the Institute for Development...
...Indeed, the key political element in Indonesia can best be described with a modified Clintonism: "It's the stupid economy." Of all the countries devastated by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Indonesia is the only one that has yet to fully recover. Over the past five years, Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP) has on average grown 3.4% annually compared with 6.5% for all of East Asia's developing countries. More than half of the population still lives on $2 a day or less. In recent years, the plight of many has worsened. Morgan Stanley estimates that GDP per capita...
...country isn't returning to the Dark Ages?GDP this year is expected to jump a healthy 5%, the fastest pace since the economic crisis, according to Goldman Sachs?but it is moving in the wrong direction in many sectors. Even as global commodity prices spike, Indonesia's valuable natural resources, including natural gas and minerals, remain untapped because of doubts about the legal system and worries over security. Over the past two years, more than 20% of Indonesia's shoe manufacturers have shut down. "The country has been deindustrializing for several years," says Hans Vriens, managing director...
...businessmen and ordinary Indonesians are hopeful that Yudhoyono's popular mandate (past leaders were chosen by parliament, not through direct elections) will give him the authority to overcome obstacles that his predecessors could not. "There are grounds for confidence," says Andrew Steer, the World Bank's country director for Indonesia. "The recognition of the problems is now there...