Wahid, Abdurrahman
(b. 1940), president of Indonesia. Born in East Java in 1940, educated (although without formal degrees) in the Middle East and Europe, and heir to Muslim elite, Abdurrahman Wahid became the head of Nahdatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, gained broad national respect for leadership and candor in criticizing the dictator Suharto in the 1990s, and finally established the National Awakening Party (PKB) to compete in 1999 in Indonesia's first relatively open parliamentary election in forty-four years.
Urbane, multilingual, courageous, and ecumenical, Abdurrahman Wahid (commonly called Gus Dur) was elected president of Indonesia in October 1999 by theNational Assembly (MPR), which also forced him from office less than two years later. Initially he was widely heralded as the perfect reformer and balm to deep national wounds from decades of autocracy, oppression, and corruption. In reality he faced crippling obstacles.
President Wahid at a press conference in Jakarta in November 1999. (AFP/CORBIS)Voting irregularities and confusion in the constitutional process raised serious questions of legitimacy in Wahid's election. Military supremacy in actual governmental authority (the legacy of decades of dictatorship), pervasive institutional corruption, general economic implosion, and the marginality of his own electoral and political party base fatally constrained his presidential authority and influenced selection of his cabinet. Physical (and, reportedly, psychological) problems from recent strokes left him with sharply diminished motor coordination and energy, as well as near blindness. Soon, despite whirlwinds of international travel, jocularly effective cultivation of media and domestic publics, cheerleading about Indonesia's future, and a few reformist flourishes, Wahid proved incapable of governing. Erratic behavior, scapegoatism, and allegations of corruption accumulated quickly and led to his ouster by the MPR and replacement by his vice president, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
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