Indonesia And Role In Asia-Pacific Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Indonesia And part In Asia-Pacific - Essay ExampleHowever democratization process since the removal of President Suharto has been keenly find and followed by the international community. During this historic period as Indonesia moves from thirty-two years of authoritarian rule to democracy, massive changes argon required to lay the foundation for constitutional liberalism and a democratic policy-making structure. The experiment has twain been pleasant and agonizing for the people. The entire country is in a state of turmoil since the removal of dictatorship. It is because with political arena how open, many issues have jumped out of the box that had hitherto been closed by President Suhartos hard reign. Political, ethnic and religious and regional conflicts have bubbled to the surface among many sparing uncertainties. But those who are in support of democracy are seeing the silver lining in the form of freedom to choose. They are now in a position to elect their own leaders- s omething that an entire generation was denied. The people confide the politically restrictive policies will no longer come into play and Indonesia would emerge as a leader in Asia-Pacific region. Once we have discussed the current political structure in the country, we shall discuss how this has been impacting Indonesias exercise in the region.So far the situation in Indonesias political structure has not been very encouraging. ... compounding this with other changes such as the restoration of freedom of speech and association and a more emancipate press, and you have a country seriously in transition. The best part is the reduced role play by the army, Tentera Nasional Indonesia, TNI, in the larger affairs of the country. While these changes may appear also many too fast to an outsider, the people of Indonesia are frustrated with the gradual democratization process. Many feel that corruption is put away a huge problem in the country2 It has also been found that no sincere eff ort is universe do to solve old corruption cases and President Suharto has not been taken to task for his role in some serious cases.3 The common man on the street has not felt any economic change and ethnic conflicts are perpetually hurting the political and social fabric. If we judge the performance of Megawatis politics by Indonesian standards, we might not term it totally futile. It had been actually been strong enough to die hard longer than other regimes and had some consistent economic and political policies to follow. But according to one analyst, these policies ... resulted in socio-economic instability in the lives of ordinary, people Employment uncertainty, price uncertainty, uncertainty of access to medicines and hospitals and to higher and vocational education. At the present time, the causes of these uncertainties are not perceived to be the absence of a strong man but of the prevalence of subtlety of self-enrichment, and of rivalry power and resources, among the old parties. (Lane, 2004) In April 2004, we witnessed the rather bizarre election results when a hung parliament made it clear that none of the