Introduction

The 1999 national election in Indonesia has been heralded as a benchmark for the transition towards democracy. In one of the few systematic treatments of Indonesian elections, Bill Liddle investigated the elections as a legitimizing factor for the Suharto regime, calling them ‘a useful fiction’. This chapter highlights some of the main characteristics of national politics in modern Indonesia, in order to put the events of 1997 and 1999 into relief. Nationally, the party that Megawati Sukarnoputri had established ahead of the elections, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) won a comfortable victory in the country, although not a majority. The PDI-P campaign portrayed a vision of a future: sentiments that were extracted from participants in the mass rallies and campaigns built strong mutual bonds and feelings of joint community among PDI-P followers. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.