In the end, Indonesia's biggest challenge may be whether its leaders can engineer a peaceful transfer of power that will preserve the stability and economic gains Mr. Suharto has championed. After nearly 28 years in charge, President Suharto is in no rush to give up power. Even so, the question of who will succeed him dominates any discussion of Indonesian politics. Mr. Suharto, then an army general, took power in a country convulsed by an anti-Communist blood bath, a result of a failed coup attributed by the Government to the Indonesian Communist Party. Estimates of the number of people who died range from 100,000 to one million.
Few people expect anything like that to be repeated.
It won't happen again. The violence was horrible, but it was cathartic. Now, the country wants to hold together. No one denies, however, that there are significant divisions within the Indonesian military and among ethnic groups, and that they could become inflamed if there is confusion over who controls the Government when Mr. Suharto leaves office. The Indonesian security forces appear to have the separatist movements on the run in all three provinces.