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former president Suharto held the rank of General in the Indonesian military |
In the last days of former Indonesian president Suharto, as he hovered between life and death in hospital, the one thing that his allies and critics could agree on was that his legacy still looms large.
Although the Suharto-era was marked stern government and corruption, the three decades also saw much-needed stability for Indonesia which enjoyed a 1970s oil boom that raised the living standards of millions of Indonesians and allowed the nation to become self-sufficient in its staple food, rice.
Ten years after his overthrow sparked by the Asian financial crisis, there are a number of Indonesians who are nostalgic of the Suharto years, a stark contrast to the groups of protesters, still angry at the former president, accused of massive corruption and human rights abuses.
As an army general, Mr Suharto took power from Indonesia's founding father and first president Sukarno in 1966 following a bloody massacre of communist sympathisers.
His model of pro-Western free market policies unfortunately also gave root to what Indonesians called the "three Ks" corruption, cronyism and collusion. That system collapsed spectacularly during the Asian financial crisis and unwound much of the progress Indonesia had achieved as the country found itself unable to deal with the economic uncertainties facing it. "The technocratic approach of the government of Indonesia at the time basically went in the wrong direction in establishing an economic system," said Kusnanto Anggoro, a political scientist at the University of Indonesia. Anggoro added that the collapse also set the template for today's Indonesia, where more "chaotic" graft reigns.
Mr Suharto's 32-year dominance of politics also stifled the emergence of new leaders in the wake of his downfall said Anggoro, creating an Indonesian elite devoid of new ideas to move the country forward in the face of persistent poverty and unemployment.
The centralisation of power in Jakarta during the Suharto-era was replaced with devolution that has given the archipelago nation's far-flung provinces an unprecedented say in their own affairs. The long separatist war in restive Aceh province is at a lull while East Timor is now an independent nation.
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