He will be the first president in Indonesian history not to have come from its Suharto-era political elite or to be a former army general, and the first to assume the presidency having experience running a government.
He will be sworn in on Oct. 20 in a ceremony to be attended by the departing president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term. Such a tableau has never been seen in Malaysia, Cambodia or Singapore.
Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said the notion of handing over power to a political opposition had become an alien concept in those countries because their respective leaders and governing parties had been in power so long.
“It’s the whole establishment, and they are not used to anything else,” Mr. Tay said. “The nature of political change would be very sweeping, and there is a fear that their countries as they know them would not survive.”
Indonesia has proved that this does not have to be the case.
The first years of democratization were tumultuous, characterized by bloody nationwide street protests, ethnic and sectarian unrest that killed thousands, terrorist attacks by homegrown Islamist militants and reluctance by the country’s feared armed forces to bend to civilian rule. The country’s first democratically elected leader in four decades, Abdurrahim Wahid, was impeached in 2001 after less than two years in office on allegations of corruption and incompetence, after tense political battles with his rivals in Parliament.
Yet Indonesia persevered, and in 2004, voters chose Mr. Yudhoyono in the first direct presidential election in the country’s history. Previously, presidents had been chosen by a legislative body tightly controlled by Suharto.
Mr. Yudhoyono’s opponent, Megawati Sukarnoputri, the incumbent president and eldest daughter of Indonesia’s founder, Sukarno, accepted defeat and stepped down, although she refused to attend his inauguration.
Indonesia’s latest election has not been wrinkle-free. The loser, Prabowo Subianto, conceded defeat, but he continues to claim that the election was marred by massive fraud. After the Constitutional Court ruled against him, Mr. Prabowo sued the government in the State Administrative Court, which rejected his suit last week. And the coalition of political parties that backed his campaign, which will have a majority when Parliament convenes in October, has threatened to form a special committee to investigate the election.
While such a panel would have no legal authority to overturn the result, it could seek to dent Mr. Joko’s legitimacy before the House of Representatives.
Political analysts, however, say this is unlikely because some of the parties in the coalition are expected to abandon Mr. Prabowo in the coming weeks and join Mr. Joko, giving him a majority and improving his ability to pass legislation.
“It seems that Prabowo does not want to accept defeat, but his so-called ‘permanent opposition coalition’ will change dramatically in the coming days,” said Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, a political science scholar at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences in Jakarta.
“Even though Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world and has more than 300 different ethnic groups, the democratization process is on track,” he said. “The military has accepted civilian supremacy, and that is the key thing.” (NY Times)
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