ABSTRACT
Minutes after landing in Jakarta on the morning of 3 June 1999, four days before Indonesians would hold their freest elections in forty-four years, I joined what I had come to observe.
The Struggle [for] Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI-P), led by Sukarno's daughter Megawati ("Mega") Sukarnoputri, had turned the center of the capital into a field of red. Crimson headbands, shirts, and banners sported pictures of Mega, her late father, and the party symbol, a fierce black bull. Their faces painted red and black, teenagers laughed and shouted from cars, on motorbikes, and in the backs of trucks. The PDI-P handsign was everywhere: index finger to thumb in a circle symbolizing unanimous support.
