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