Word: suhartos
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...Megawati's father, President Sukarno, who had steered the nation to independence in 1945, was overthrown in a bloody coup in 1965. The new dictator, Suharto, was viewed by Washington as the indispensable strategic counterweight to Chinese ambitions in Asia. Today, three years after Suharto's ouster, the fate of Indonesia may be even more critical for a U.S. administration that envisages long-term strategic competition with China...
...Indonesia, at the moment, is in critical condition. The nation has never recovered from the financial crisis that precipitated the overthrow of Suharto, much less from the resulting political turmoil that has produced three presidents in three years. Hanging over all is the fear that the entire country might descend into a violent disintegration similar to the bloodbath that accompanied East Timor's independence. Separatist rebellions in Aceh and Irian Jaya and inter-communal violence in the Moluccas and elsewhere show that the patchwork of ethnic enclaves that became a nation-state only by dint of their common colonization...
...reluctant savior. The 54-year-old matriarch was pressed into politics at age 40 by opponents of the dictatorship who hoped to use the Sukarno mythology to rally support. And it worked. In 1999, when Indonesians had their first opportunity to vote for a successor to the ousted Suharto, Megawati won a plurality of the vote. And that despite the fact that she has few visible talents as a politician. She seldom speaks in public and rarely discusses anything approximating policy; and the fact that she allowed herself to be outmaneuvered for the presidency by Abdurrahman Wahid despite her election...
...Still, Megawati's presidency is a product of that very backroom intrigue she shuns. Her family may have been ousted from power by Suharto, but it remained part of Jakarta's fractious political and economic elite. The very same coalition of forces that united to keep her out of the top job after the 1999 election have now united to elevate her. Little is known of her political thinking beyond a broad echo of her father's nationalism. It's a nationalism strongly supported by the military, a nationalism that doesn't easily tolerate federalism or secession, which suggests...
...interesting that there have been no demonstrations either for or against Megawati so far. Unlike the time when Suharto was overthrown, people now look at it as the usual shadow puppet game of the elite moving around and exchanging cabinet posts. For ordinary people, they see that Wahid didn't work, and now they'll try Megawati. But without any conviction that things will be any better...