Moreover, many former Suharto cronies remain in power, and the influential army is reluctant to pull out of politics completely. Racial hatred, particularly towards the Chinese minority, which bore the brunt of the May riots, has not ended. Not surprisingly, many people are sceptical about Indonesia's chances of attaining and maintaining democracy. Alfred Stepan, a professor at Oxford University and a leading expert on democratic transitions, argues that Indonesia is not even at first base yet, because remnants of the old order still linger in power. As a rough yardstick of how slowly such processes can move, he notes that only one of the 15 former Soviet states has developed a truly democratic system, even though the process began early in the decade.
Some observers are more upbeat, however.
Here they're trying to do the same thing in about three months. It's going very, very well. To be sure, many Indonesians are not waiting for legislation. Interest groups have already formed more than 70 parties of various hues, and Jakarta is pushing ahead with proposals for East Timor, which it annexed in 1976, even though the regional-autonomy law has still to be completed. Non-governmental agencies, the media, and intellectuals have been swept up in a ferment of political discussion about the country's future.