ABSTRACT
The tenure of President Abdurrahman Wahid, whose rise to presidency was made possible by the support from a loose coalition of Islamic political forces, lasted only for twenty-one months (October 1999-July 2001). After weeks of intense political battle, he was finally replaced by Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of the founder of the Republic of Indonesia and the country’s first president, Sukarno. The circumstances within which the transfer of power took place reflected a double irony in post-Suharto Indonesian politics. First, Wahid’s downfall was orchestrated by the same coalition of Islamic political parties – the Central Axis – that brought him to power in the first place. Second, the rise of Megawati was made possible by support from the Central Axis, the same political force that had prevented her bid to presidency in July 1999. The concession was for Megawati to agree on a vice-president from the Islamist camp, namely, Hamzah Haz of the PPP. With the fall of Wahid and the rise of Megawati, a new political compromise, manifested in the formation of a coalition government between secularnationalist and Islam, was set in motion.
