Word: suharto
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...July 8 election, SBY's two main opponents fielded running mates who were also prominent generals under Suharto. SBY, though, was the only one of the three not being pursued on charges of human-rights abuses...
...radical Islamist groups and rebuilding a nation that suffered the brunt of 2005's devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. SBY - Yudhoyono is widely referred to by his initials - is seen as a moderate and honest figure in a nation still emerging from decades of cronyism under the deceased military dictator Suharto. When his triumph is certified, he will become the first President to be re-elected in what is the world's most populous Muslim democracy. (Read about Indonesia's election...
...Little more than a decade ago, tens of thousands of Indonesians joined together in a people-power overthrow of dictator Suharto, who had ruled for 32 years. Since then, the country has had four Presidents, with peaceful transitions of power between each leader. Indonesia's success at the ballot box has silenced skeptics who doubted whether Indonesia - with its diversity of islands, religions and ethnicities - could mature into a democratic state. Indeed, compared to countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, where democratic institutions are stagnating if not backsliding, Indonesia has cemented its status as Southeast Asia's political role model...
...With Yudhoyono, a former three-star general and Indonesia's first directly elected President, in front with a commanding lead, the opposition is now warning that the election - the country's second free poll since the fall of strongman General Suharto in 1998 - will be fraught with irregularities. "I have raised the issue of the voter rolls since day one," candidate Megawati, who currently stands at a distant second with a projected 20% of the vote, recently told foreign journalists. "There is a big chance that there could be a lot of cheating during the elections." (See pictures...
...Bigger changes are expected to come in five years, when the field is likely to be filled with new candidates and not figures from the New Order, as Suharto's regime was called. "All of the presidential candidates have been in office, so we know who they are," says Sandra Hamid, who handles governance issues at the Asia Foundation. "It is hard to know what they could tell people that will change their minds." (Watch a video about a destructive mud volcano in Indonesia...