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Article: Suharto's birthday puzzle. (Indonesia)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 13, 1992
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The general election on June 9th honoured Indonesia's cultural tradition of obliqueness and ambiguity. President Suharto's ruling Golkar party won; it could hardly lose. But there was enough of a swing to the opposition to get the pundits speculating that something new, and possibly worrying for Mr Suharto, might be happening to the country's politics.
With 85% of the 107m votes counted, Golkar had taken 67% of them. At the previous election in 1987 Golkar had 73% of the vote. This week the voters gave a small boost to the Muslim-based United Development Party, in second place with 17.5%, and a bigger boost to the populist Indonesian Democratic Party, close ...