Australians pay tribute to Indonesia's Abdurrahman Wahid

Sydney - Australians on Thursday paid tribute to former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid, the neighboring country's first democratically elected leader. Wahid died of multiple illnesses Wednesday in Jakarta at the age of 69.

A Muslim scholar and secular democrat, he came to the presidency after the downfall of Suharto in May 1998, followed by the first free and democratic elections in 1999.

He emerged as a compromise presidential candidate, ousting Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose party had won the largest bloc of seats in the legislature but had many enemies in the former ruling party.

Wahid was ousted in 2001 over perceived incompetence and an unproven corruption allegation.

"Former president Wahid was much admired and respected not only within Indonesia, but also by many Australians and others throughout our region," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in a statement.

"Mr Wahid was responsible for a number of important reforms which assisted his country's path towards becoming a modern democracy. Mr Wahid was also highly influential as a moderate Islamic leader in Indonesia and a strong advocate of ethnic and religious tolerance."

He visited Australia in 2001, the first Indonesian president to do so since a fleeting visit by Suharto in 1975.

Australian academic Greg Barton, Wahid's biographer and friend, said the legacy of the former leader of Indonesia's largest Islamic organization was raising expectations in what democracy should deliver and the sort of nation Indonesia should become.

"He did this with a reckless disregard of his lack of political capital," Barton said. "So, in a way, he achieved what he did precisely because he wasn't a politician."

Barton said both Wahid and his predecessor, B J Habibie, were non-politicians who prepared the way for the current president, Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono.

"Both of them were keen to push the reforms when they didn't really have the political base to do so," Barton said. "And I think one of the reasons for Indonesia's successful transition to a democracy is you had these two transitional figures quite unexpected coming in and saying 'No, we are not going to settle for some kind of compromise regime, we want to go for a full democracy.'"

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/301591,australians-pay-tribute-to-indonesias-abdurrahman-wahid.html.