ABSTRACT
As we have seen, Indonesian politics during most of the 1990s was a waiting game, with the impending presidential succession increasingly dominating the country’s political life. After Suharto, in spite of widespread expectations that he might step down in 1993, had been elected president for the term 1993-98, the expectation was that this term —by the end of which the president would be 76 years old-would in any case be his last.1 This expectation again seemed to come to nought in the second half of 1995, when the president began to indicate that he was prepared to serve a seventh term as president. From September 1995, a wave of endorsements for Suharto to seek a another term as president began to be heard from Muslim leaders, as well as Golkar functionaries and cabinet ministers,2 making Suharto’s re-election in 1998 again look like a foregone conclusion.
