"What we have now in Indonesia is the same old New Order without Suharto. Nothing is really changing."
With these words, a 21-year-old student activist named Yongki summed up the frustration and cynicism being expressed at a marathon emergency meeting in Malang, East Java, last month to protest the proposed new state security law. Yongki and his fellow students believe that whoever becomes president of Indonesia in the election scheduled for November will be no more than a puppet of the military -- a perception shared by Indonesians of all ages, classes and professions. One thing is certain: People who are optimistic about the prospects for meaningful political reform in Indonesia are thin on the ground.
What went wrong? Since the toppling of President Suharto in May 1998, Indonesians have enjoyed expanded civil rights, a robustly critical press, free and fair parliamentary elections and the defeat of Golkar (the widely detested ruling party during the New Order). Moreover, President B.J. Habibie has been taking a whipping in the media. So, given all this good news, why all the pessimism and skepticism?