ABSTRACT
The relevance of Habibie's links with the Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI) Muslims is that they have considerably broadened the political support for his economic ideas. The core of Habibie's economic ideas is that high value-added technology is the key to future economic success. Soeharto came to power determined to restrict the political process to a small elite in the belief that less politics was a necessary precondition for a prolonged period of economic development. The patrimonial nature of Indonesia's government, its lack of accountability, the weakness of the legal system and Soeharto's cultivation of selected businessmen and women are what lie behind the prevalence of corruption in Indonesia. Nationalists complain that the mounting foreign debt has made Indonesia excessively vulnerable to pressure from foreign bankers and aid donors. Critics say that even if poverty has declined, the pattern of economic growth in Indonesia has created more inequalities in wealth distribution.
