Guided democracy was populist, militarist and non-parliamentary. Sukarno presented himself nationally as the international crusader against imperialism and colonialism. He succeeded in this during the struggle for West Irian, but failed in his policy to 'crush Malaysia'. The first united, the second divided, the nation.
Having repeatedly failed in the UN General Assembly to go beyond a simple majority, Indonesia sought self-help to gain West Irian. The Dutch won a pyrrhic victory, and so decided to relinquish the territory. His continuing hostility to the West, immensely popular at home, was summed up as Nefos against Oldefos (New Emerging and Old Established Forces). In 1963, the latter assumed the shape of the contemplated Federation of Malaysia : a union of the independent Federation of Malaya and the British-controlled territories of Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. He saw in it an attempt by conservative Malayan leaders and the British to preserve the status quo after the latter had left. The popularity of the 'crush Malaysia' policy embarrassed the army : the need to be seen supporting Sukarno conflicted with jealousy of the PKI's growing prestige conferred by the campaign. At the same time, his obsession with symbols of greatness impoverished the nation. By the mid-'60s, inflation stood at over 650%; exports fell, and foreign indebtedness came to $2,400,000,000.
The conflict between the army and the PKI became dominant internally. It climaxed on the night of 30 September - 1 October 1965, when some squads and PKI-affiliated members kidnapped and killed six senior army officers. Nasution escaped. The broadcast message was that a coup by right-wing generals paid by the CIA had been frustrated. The failure to capture General Suharto resulted in his taking full control of Jakarta.
The New Order: mid- to late 1960s - 1998
Students, intellectuals and politically active Muslims aided the army against the communists. The New Order, they felt, meant rescue from the political, moral and economic bankruptcy of the Old. The New Order government set political and economic stability, followed by development (see table above), as its goals. The first goal collided with the expectations of its supporters that they would now rule and establish civilian rule. Suharto took two steps.
First, he magnified Golkar, a hitherto ineffective party set up by the army to counter the PKI, to national proportions. Second, he cut the number of parties from nine to two through mergers : a Muslim, the Development Unity Party (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, PPP) and a non-Muslim one, the Indonesian Democratic Party (Partai Democrasi Indonesia, PDI). Sukarno's daughter, Megawati, led the latter from '93 to '96.
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