Megawati Sukarnoputri

Diah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri (born 23 January 1947), was President of Indonesia from July 2001 to 20 October 2004. She was defeated for re-election in the 2004 Indonesian presidential election on 20 September.

Some Indonesian sources spell her name Soekarnoputri. Note that Sukarnoputri means "daughter of Sukarno" and it is not the President's surname: Javanese do not have surnames. She should simply be referred to as Megawati or Mega.

Early Life

Megawati was born in Yogyakarta, the second child and eldest daughter of Sukarno, then the president of Indonesia, which had declared its independence from the Netherlands in 1945. Her mother Fatmawati was one of Sukarno's nine wives. Megawati grew up in luxury in her father's Merdeka Palace.

Megawati went to Padjadjaran University in Bandung to study agriculture, but dropped out in 1967 to be with her father following his fall from power. Megawati was 19 when Sukarno was succeeded by a military government led by Suharto. Sukarno's family was ignored by the new government provided they stayed out of politics.

In 1970, the year Sukarno died, Megawati went to the University of Indonesia to study psychology but dropped out after two years. Even her warmest admirers would not claim that Megawati is an intellectual, and she has little knowledge of the world outside Indonesia. She is a pious Muslim but also follows traditional Javanese beliefs and has great faith in astrology.

Megawati's first husband, First Lieutenant Surindo Supjarso, was killed in a plane crash in Irian Jaya in 1970. In 1972, she married Hassan Gamal Ahmad Hasan, an Egyptian diplomat. The marriage was annulled shortly after. She married Taufik Kiemas, her present husband, in 1973. They have three children, M. Rizki Pramata, M. Pranada Prabowo and Puan Maharani, now in their 30s.

Political career

Megawati avoided politics for nearly 20 years, describing herself as a simple housewife, although her father's followers continued to see her as his political heir. In 1987, however, Megawati and her husband joined the Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI), a government-sanctioned party which provided a facade of democratic choice in Suharto's "New Order" government. As a reward for her apparent acceptance of the government, Megawati was elected to Parliament.

In 1993 Megawati became the leader of PDI, where she became a popular leader of the opposition to Suharto. Despite her relative lack of political experience, she was popular in part for her status as the daughter of Sukarno, but also because she was seen as free of corruption and having admirable personal qualities. Under her leadership, PDI gained a large following among the urban poor and both urban and rural middle classes.

By 1996 the government realised it had made a mistake in allowing Megawati to enter politics, and forced her removal from the leadership of the PDI. This triggered rioting in Jakarta. Megawati was banned from contesting the May 1997 general election. This only increased her popularity. She formed her own party, PDI-Perjuangan (PDI-P) (Perjuangan means "Struggle.")

The Asian economic crisis which began in 1997, as well as increasing public anger at pervasive corruption, brought about the end of Suharto’s long rule, and he resigned in May 1998. His successor, B. J. Habibie, promised free elections in 1999, and the PDI-P rapidly became the main rival to the government party, Golkar.

At the June 1999 elections, PDI-P emerged as the largest party, but did not win an absolute majority of votes, or a majority of seats in the Parliament. Under Indonesia's new constitution, the President was chosen by the legislature, and Megawati appeared to have the strongest claim to the presidency. But the other parties united to block her, partly because of Muslim opposition to a woman president. Her erstwhile friend and ally, Abdurrahman Wahid, was chosen instead. Megawati agreed to become Vice President.

Wahid, however, had suffered several strokes and soon proved to be unable to carry out the role of President. He was also accused of tolerating corruption in the administration. In July 2001 the parties in the legislature united to force his resignation. On July 23, 2001, Megawati was duly installed as the new President of the Republic of Indonesia.

Under Megawati, the process of democratic reform begun under Habibie and Wahid continued, albeit slowly and erratically. Megawati appeared to see her role mainly as a symbol of national unity, and she rarely actively intervened in government business. The military, disgraced at the time of Suharto's fall, regained much of its influence. Corruption continued to be pervasive, though Megawati herself was seldom blamed for this.

Some Indonesian scholars explained Megawati's apparent passivity in office by reference to Javanese mythology. Megawati, they said, saw her father, Sukarno, as a "Good King" of Javanese legend. Suharto was the "Bad Prince" who had usurped the Good King's throne. Megawati was the Avenging Daughter who overthrew the Bad Prince and regained the Good King's throne. Once this had been achieved, they said, Megawati was content to reign as the Good Queen and leave the business of government to others.

Although by 2004 Indonesia's economy had partly recovered from the 1997 crisis, unemployment and poverty remained high, and there was considerable disappointment at Megawati's presidency. The Indonesian Constitution was amended to provide for the direct election of the President, and Megawati stood for a second term. She consistently trailed in the opinion polls, due in part to the strong preference for male candidates among Muslim voters, and in part due to what was widely seen as a mediocre performance in office. Despite a somewhat better than expected performance in the first round of the elections, in the second round she was defeated by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In one of the more curious departures from high office in recent times, Megawati neither conceded defeat, nor congratulated her successor, not attended his inauguration. She simply vacated the Presidential Palace and returned to private life without making any statement.

External links

• Forbes: Megawati is ranked eighth on The World's Top Ten Most Powerful Women 2004 (http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/11/2004/LIR.jhtml?passListId=11&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&uniqueId=MVC8&datatype=Person)
• TIME Magazine: The Princess Who Settled for the Presidency (http://www.time.com/time/pow/printout/0,8816,169130,00.html)

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