Indonesia Picks a New Government

Roughly 120 million Indonesian voters will take to the polls April 9 to select the nearly 20,000 national, provincial and district leaders who will represent them for the next five years. Indonesia's tryst with democracy is young enough that each of the country's three post-Suharto elections (1999, 2004 and 2009) was its own milestone. But this year's election cycle, which will culminate with the presidential election on July 9, has a somewhat different tenor. Not only will it usher in a new president and government, but it will also in many ways mark the start of a new phase in post-Suharto Indonesia. A strong victory for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle could create the conditions for a government with the will and capability to manage the transition to that new phase — but there is no guarantee that one will manifest.