ABSTRACT
Indonesia, along with other cases in Southeast Asia, has been one of the late democratizers of the ‘ThirdWave’. While democratization was spreading to Latin America, Africa and the former Soviet Union, Indonesia was left behind, along with other countries of the ‘recalcitrant’ (Emmerson 1995) region of Southeast Asia. Since the end of Suharto’s long authoritarian regime in 1998, Indonesia has implemented a vast number of political reforms that place it among healthy electoral democracies. Two free and fair elections in 1999 and 2004 led to opposition parties defeating incumbents, and the 2004 elections saw the firstever direct presidential election in the country. The process was fair, smooth, and without violence. Incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri, despite a reluctance to admit defeat publicly and clearly humiliated by her performance, nevertheless relinquished power to her successor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyoho. Indonesia has just held another round of elections, once again defeating initial doubts about its longevity.
