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|a The article looks at political movements in indonesia as of September 2004. For the past few years, most news reports from Indonesia have featured terrorists, regional insurgencies, and human rights violations. Developments beneath the surface, however, lead to a more hopeful view: Indonesia--the world's fourth most populous country and largest by far with a Muslaim majority--isundergoing a profound political transition. Indonesia's democratic transformation, know as Reformasi, began in 1998. Reformasi may have been more of an elite coup than a people's revolution, but its objective was to find a viable path to a just and prosperous society. The results of a national election April 5, 2004, showed just how profound an effect Reformasi has had on Indonesia's political system. At the heart of Reformasi was a constitutional amendment that requires the direct election of the president for a five-year term. In a stunning exercise in political architecture, a set of constitutional amendments adopted between 1999 and 2003 injected critical checks and balance into Indonesia's political system. All of Indonesia's macroeconomic indicators improved from mid-2001 to early 2004, despite internal shocvks such as the terrorist attacks on Bali in October 2002. In the near term, economic progress will depend on Indonesia's success in tackling three devils: an unreliable judicial system, a weak banking system, and corruption.
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