B. J. Habibie and the Transformation of Indonesian Politics

Abstract:Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, then vice-president of Indonesia, succeeded to the presidency on May 21, 1998, when the autocratic President Suharto resigned. The occasion was the most severe economic and political crisis in Indonesian history since 1965, when Suharto had wrested power from his predecessor, Indonesian founding father Sukarno, who had also ruled autocratically from 1959–1965.During his brief tenure, from May 1998 to October 1999, Habibie made three decisions that transformed Indonesian politics. He conducted the first national and local democratic elections since 1955, when Indonesia was briefly a parliamentary democracy. He devolved administrative and fiscal authority to district and municipality governments for the first time since the 1950s.Finally, he enabled the people of East Timor to choose independence from Indonesia. The first two of these actions gave significantly more political power to Indonesian citizens than they had previously enjoyed. The third restored the nation-state to the original conception and commitment made by its founders.