Can we be optimistic?

Finally, president Soeharto bowed to his people's demand and resigned. This astonishing decision was unthinkable until the beginning of this week. Three days ago, despite the mounting public pressure for his resignation, the president was still doing his utmost to keep his position. He failed to realize that Indonesians were weary of his maneuvering.

On Wednesday, he was forced to realize that he had lost his people and, at the eleventh hour, his Armed Forces, who had staunchly supported him in the past.

By taking such a drastic step, Soeharto also seemed to shrewdly sidestep the possibility of impeachment by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country's highest constitutional body which elected him in March.

Another face-saving tactic was to announce his resignation and have his successor sworn in at the Presidential Palace instead of the MPR, as tradition dictates. The law-making body's leadership seemed hesitant to push the issue, as it was more pressing for the leader to finally step aside.

The procedures of Soeharto's resignation and the appointment of Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie as the new president are constitutional in nature. The question now is will the new man in command be able to implement the popular demand for total reform in order to heal the country's ills. The answer seems to be negative.

Habibie is a part of the old, entrenched system and is not far from authoritarianism, cronyism, collusion and nepotism. Reports have said that he and his family own major conglomerates. Habibie is not particularly popular among any segment of society. Despite his inarguable intellect, he is well-known as intolerant of ideas which differed from his own; until recently, he had openly opposed the public demand for complete reform, especially the convening of a special meeting of the MPR to discuss the regime's record.

For these very reasons, it is hard to believe he will be able to realize what the people want. Tomorrow does not bode well for a better situation, as most signs point to more suffering of the people as the economy continues to deteriorate.

The people, after three decades of the New Order's autocratic rule, want to emerge from the darkness in which their all institutions of democracy were emasculated and the economy was controlled by a privileged elite. The situation worsened last year after Indonesia was stunned to find itself as one of the world's poorest nations despite the much-touted development "successes" of recent years. They now live in untold misery -- its persistence will ring the death knell for the government.

We understand that to be a nation anew is not easy. But the failure to carry through with change will only compound the people's frustrations, and cause them to vent their long-standing frustrations in even more savage ways.

In facing the difficult road ahead, we should move to step up supervision by the people and maintain the student movement as an effective correctional power for the nation's leaders.