New president's priority task

New president's priority task

Indonesia's next president will be chosen this fall by a
special assembly made up of the 462 newly elected members of the
House of Representatives, 38 delegates nominated by the armed
forces and 200 representatives chosen by local assemblies and
designated interest groups. In this assembly the military and its
Golkar allies may try to use bribery, backroom dealing and
intimidation to impose their favorite candidate on the country
despite the opposition parties' strong showing in last week's
general election. General Wiranto, the armed forces commander who
last year played a helpful role in easing Indonesia's long-
serving dictator, president Soeharto, from power must make sure
that his fellow officers do not try to overturn the voters'
choice.

The next president's priority task will be to lead Indonesia
out of the economic crisis that has thrown 20 million of its
people into poverty since 1997. That will require rebuilding a
shattered banking system, cleaning up the crony business empires
set up during the long Soeharto dictatorship and regaining the
trust of international investors. The next president must also
spark enough growth to rebuild drastically reduced tax revenue so
that the government can resume paying its bills. It will help if
some of the illicit billions allegedly amassed by the Soeharto
family can be recovered. The Clinton administration is rightly
looking into whether any such money is now being held in the
United States.

Mrs. Megawati Soekarnoputri has been vague about her economic
plans beyond rejecting the socialism favored by her father and
embracing the market. Mr. Habibie, her likely rival, has long
been associated with Mr. Soeharto and his business cronies.
Indonesians deserve to have the hope and enthusiasm they showed
during the elections vindicated. There must be a clean break from
the electoral manipulations of the past and from the failed
economic policies of both the Sukarno and the Soeharto eras.

-- The New York Times