When Indonesia's new President, Mr BJ Habibie, left the presidential palace in Jakarta on Thursday after being sworn into office, he found the number plate from President Suharto's Mercedes, "Indonesia 1", had been unscrewed and attached to his official limousine. But being number one in Indonesia does not mean having the country's support, especially as Mr Habibie is the hand-picked successor of the deeply unpopular Mr Suharto. He has little credibility with the majority political party, Golkar, the financial community, or the students who gained popular backing for their campaign for political reform.
The armed forces are behind him only insofar as Gen Wiranto and fellow officers concluded on Wednesday that Mr Suharto's position was no longer tenable and that the vice-president was the only constitutional alternative. On taking over, Mr Habibie (61) was immediately faced with an enormous challenge, to put together a cabinet which could restore confidence at home and abroad. He appeared in the presidential palace yesterday morning to announce that he was setting up a clean "Reform Development Cabinet" which would eliminate nepotism and corruption.
As widely anticipated, he dumped Mr Suharto's daughter, Ms Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, and the timber tycoon Mr Mohamad "Bob" Hasan, a friend of Mr Suharto and golfing partner since he took power 32 years ago. He included as finance minister Mr Bambang Subianto, a capable former bureaucrat whose personal integrity cost him his previous job.
However three-quarters of the Suharto cabinet keep their posts, including Gen Wiranto who remains as Defence Minister and head of the armed forces, and the Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas. None of the prominent reform movement figures has been given a ministerial post though LieutGen Syarwan Hamid, the Home Affairs Minister, a one-time hardliner, has supported the students and called for an investigation into "disappeared" activists. On the other hand, human rights organisations are angry at the inclusion as Information Minister of Lieut-Gen Yunus Yosfiah. He is the military officer who helped co-ordinate the bloody occupation of East Timor in October 1975. The opposition leader, Dr Amien Rais, whose Islamic movement claims 28 million followers and who has become the figurehead of the protest movement, said he was "neutral" on the cabinet.
"It has a lot of technocrats in it but some of the names still reflect old ways," he said, pointing out that the ministers responsible for trade and industry, health, investment, and land are all close Suharto buddies. "This cabinet will not last until 2003 [when the President's term runs out]" he told reporters crowded into the headquarters of his Muhammadiyah organisation. Dr Rais's neutrality may be the result of his old friendship with Mr Habibie and the fact that this is a "green cabinet" with solid Muslim representation. He met Mr Habibie on Thursday and said he had not been offered a post, nor would he accept one because he was still in opposition. Negotiations to recruit to the cabinet representatives of the faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party led by Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, a pro-democracy opposition leader popular with students, also fell through. Market analysts and economists gave the new government a qualified welcome. They liked the fact that the new Indonesian President brought in some young professionals, retained the Economics Co-ordinating Minister, Mr Ginandjar Kartasasmita, who negotiated Indonesia's IMF bail-out last year, and made the central bank governor independent of the government. "Generally I was impressed by the quality of the selections to the new cabinet" said the World Bank country director, Mr Dennis de Tray. Student demonstrators feel betrayed however. They say they have no intention of giving up the parliament building which they first occupied on Monday and are calling for President Habibie to step down to allow new elections. The parliament compound, ankledeep in rubbish, has a carnival atmosphere, and hundreds of street vendors are now swarming around the gates selling pro-reform stickers and baseball hats to passing traffic. Most tanks have been withdrawn from the streets of Jakarta and tension has eased to the point where young women sit aboard the few armoured vehicles and fraternise happily with the soldiers. But the euphoria of toppling Mr Suharto has worn off. The students also had a taste of opposition yesterday when crowds of Muslim supporters of Mr Habibie swooped in and confronted the 5,000 pro-reform student radicals. Some plastic bottles were thrown but the situation quickly calmed and the two sides started a debate.
The students sense a historic opportunity, after the fall of one of the last Asian strongmen of the Cold War era, to phase out autocratic rule and realise a new vision for the future. With Mr Suharto gone, the forces representing order and stability and which instinctively distrust democracy - the old champions of Asian values - quickly regained the initiative by installing Mr Habibie as President.
The battleground in Indonesia now is between these two forces. Reformers demand a special parliamentary session to redefine the political system. They are supported by some establishment figures like the former governor of Jakarta, retired Lieut-Gen Ali Sadikin, and other respected old soldiers, an important link to the armed forces, the power brokers in Indonesian politics. Retired general Kemal Idris said: "Habibie is part of the Suharto crony leadership, and we don't trust him."
The biggest fear of the students now is that they will be marginalised. Their apprehensions are shared by the English language Jakarta Post. "Habibie is a part of the old, entrenched system and is not far from authoritarianism, cronyism, collusion and nepotism," it said. After three decades of autocratic rule, the people "want to emerge from the darkness in which all their institutions of democracy were emasculated and the economy was controlled by a privileged elite". They have still a long way to go.