Introduction

A decade and a half after the democratic transition of the late 1990s, Indonesia is now seen as a normal country.1 It has been consolidating its democracy since the fall of the autocratic President Suharto in 1998 and has embraced decentralization. The country is seen as the most stable democracy in Southeast Asia and has been a key reference as a democratic transition success story, especially when Indonesia is compared with countries such as Egypt and Myanmar.2 Its economy recovered fairly quickly from its post-independence worst economic downturn in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Indonesia weathered the recent global financial crisis much better than advanced economies and neighbouring countries, maintaining a positive economic growth. In 2009, it successfully accomplished the third free and fair parliamentary elections and the second direct presidential elections since the democratic transition. Furthermore, the local executives in more than 500 of its sub-national entities (provinces and districts) have been directly elected by the local adult population since 2005.