Beyond democratic elections: Indonesia embarks on a protracted transition

Chronologically, Indonesia moved rather quickly from rupture of the authoritarian regime in May 1998 to the installation of a democratically elected government in October 1999. However, the suddenness of the rupture and the weakness of the anti‐regime forces enabled regime defenders to wield broad influence over the terms of the transition and to protect substantial authoritarian enclaves. These conditions suggest that Indonesia's transition remains far from complete and is likely to be protracted. Viewed more broadly, they call attention to a set of factors that suggest a typology of pacted and protracted transitions: the presence or absence of an opportunity to negotiate a transition pact among competing elites, and the relative degree of consensus among those elites regarding the nature and direction of political reform. This typology highlights features of the Mexican and Indonesian cases that mark them as variants on the protracted transition model rather than unrelated paths toward democracy.