Once again Indonesia has made a surprising choice. As the wags put it in Jakarta, the country has had only three presidents since independence each of whom was mad in his own way: the ebullient Sukarno (in office, 1945-67) was mad about women; General Suharto (in office, 1967-98) was mad about money; and his short-lived successor, the hapless Habibie, was just plain mad.
Now confronted with a Wahid-Megawati double act what will the wags say? The physically blind leading the politically blind? At first glance the 59-year-old Abdurrahman Wahid's election comes 10 years too late. However wily a politician and remarkable an individual - he speaks seven languages and holds degrees in literature and Islamic theology from Cairo and Baghdad, as well as combining an immense knowledge of Javanese history and folklore with a passionate interest in football - Wahid is simply too unwell to bear the burden of high office in such a vast, troubled country.
A decade ago, it might have been a different story. Then Wahid was at the height of his powers - the most charismatic figure in Indonesian politics and the leader of the country's largest grassroots organisation, the 30-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama ("Renaissance of the Ulama"). This gave him a power base in Java from which to challenge Suharto's increasingly corrupt and authoritarian "New Order" regime. In particular, he criticised Suharto's attempts to co-opt the Indonesian Muslim intellectuals to his side by the formation in late 1990 of the Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals chaired by the President's wunderkind and minister for research and technology, B.J. Habibie. Wahid's main initiative at that time was the establishment of the Democracy Forum, a loose association of leading Indonesian intellectuals, scientists, journalists, lawyers, academics and the country's most revered Catholic priest, Rama (Father) Y.B. Mangunwijaya.
The goals were laudable in a country run for most of its 50- year independent history as a quasi-fief of the military and bureaucracy. Today, the legacy of such a lengthy period of autocracy can be seen in the country's pitifully weak civil society institutions and the undermining of its economy through government-linked monopolies and endemic corruption. Between the onset of the Asian financial crisis in July 1997 and December 1998 the Indonesian economy began to post a modest revival. But per capita incomes have tumbled from $900 per annum to close on $350.
In the early 1990s Wahid emerged as the principal standard bearer of reform and democratisation in Indonesia. He was also a quick learner. When I met him in London at the time of the infamous Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor when upwards of 350 young Timorese had been gunned down by the Indonesian army during a peaceful demonstration in Dili, Wahid was singularly ill-briefed about East Timorese affairs. But he was soon seized by the importance of the event, retrospectively a major turning point in international perceptions of Jakarta's 24year military occupation. He immediately demanded a series of private briefings from the London-based human rights organisation, Tapol, and later came out in favour of a referendum in the territory.
In the same year (July 1996), the army-orchestrated attack on the Jakarta headquarters of the Megawati-led faction of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) turned Sukarno's eldest daughter into a leading opposition figure and champion of democracy in her own right. But the subsequent Megawati-Wahid political alliance was stormy. In fact, the two opposition leaders had few character traits in common. Megawati, the sometime florist turned politician, mainly traded on her father's name and proved distinctly inept when it came to the business of politics. During the long years since the mid-1980s when she had served as a government party (Golkar) MP, she had barely spoken in the National Assembly (DPR). Instead, she owed her rise to prominence within the PDI to the support of the army.
Wahid by contrast was the consummate politician who had been born to politics (both his grandfather and father had been leading figures in the NU ever since its 1926 foundation). Both, however, shared a strong commitment to the ideal of a secular, nationalist Indonesia. Wahid, in particular, has been outspoken in defence of the country's economically vital, but politically vulnerable, six-million strong ethnic Chinese minority, and some of Megawati's key advisers are Indonesian Chinese.
For almost the first time since Sukarno's `Old Order' in the 1950s, Indonesian Chinese are likely to be brought into the cabinet. Both Wahid and Megawati will also set their faces against any special privileging of Islam in Indonesian public life. There, however, the common ground may run out: Wahid's ill health will increase his dependence on his key lieutenants, many of whom see Megawati's political naivete and gender as a disadvantage.
Within the vast NU movement, there are also less tolerant voices who are critical of Wahid's secular approach and resent his eschewal of special rights for Muslims. The way in which the issue of separatism is handled will also be problematic, nowhere more so than in the fiercely Islamic province of Aceh in North Sumatra which controls much of Indonesia's Liquid Natural Gas exports. East Timor's recent independence vote has fuelled calls for a similar referendum there. Almost immediately the question of the role of Islamic (sharia) law and the status of Muslims within the Indonesian constitution will have to be confronted. Megawati's own gut reaction will be to deny the Acehnese any chance of secession in the interests of national integrity whereas Wahid has already said that he will be willing to offer them a referendum.
At one level a dream ticket which brings together the leaders of Indonesia's two most powerful popular constituencies, rural Islam and secular nationalism, the joint Wahid-Megawati administration could soon turn into a nightmare.
As historians of empire will tell you, the smallest events can sometimes unravel even the most powerful and extensive states. Events in East Timor - Indonesia's "pebble in the shoe" - could send its ripple effects through the whole of Indonesia turning it into a Southeast Asian Yugoslavia.
Dr Peter Carey is a Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford, and lecturer in International Relations at Limerick University, specialising in modern Indonesia.
