This week the people of Indonesia went to the polls, the second nation-wide elections after 1998 following the fall of the Soeharto regime and the restoration of what is still too new and too fragile to be called a 'democracy' in any meaningful sense of the word.

Though the results will only be announced at the end of April, the fact that Indonesia managed to cobble together something that looks like a national election system has already come as a surprise to many observers and students of Indonesia's convoluted and problem-ridden politics.

For all the sound and flurry, this has proven to be a disappointing venture: For a start the familiar faces of the old regime are still there: Soeharto the dictator who was supported to the bitter end by none other than the Americans remains at large and has thus far managed to stay one step ahead of the short arm of the law thanks to his alleged 'ill health'. Three of the Presidential candidates that will be in the running for the highest office in the land later in June-July happen to be his own children.

Embattled President Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the country's near-mythical founder-leader Soekarno, is also in the running, along with two of her siblings. So too are a number of ex-Soeharto supporters from the army and the traditional ruling elite: Akbar Tanjung, senior leader of the Golkar party and Sunan Hemengkubuwono of Jogjakarta, a close ally of Soeharto during the 'New Order' era, are also making an appearance.

In a country with more than 220 million people on the official census, it appears as if Indonesian politics is still very much a family business as in the case of the other countries in Asean including the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia.

The counting of the votes is likely to be a slow and problematic enterprise. Tens of thousands of polling stations have been set up all over the Indonesian archipelago and the total number of votes that has to be counted is in access of 140 million. On top of that the Indonesian voters have been asked to choose between 24 parties (which was already an improvement from the last elections when more than 40 parties jumped into the fray, twelve of which happened to be Islamist in orientation.)

Adding to Indonesia's woes is the meddling hand of its erstwhile ally, the United States. Since the Cold War era a succession of American technocrats, securocrats and hawks in Washington have regarded Indonesia as the 'prize catch' in the Asean region. Cognisant of Indonesia's strategic importance and further motivated by the desire to reap the profits from Indonesia's oil and gas resources, Washington and other Western powers have been meddling in Indonesian politics since the 1950s.

In the immediate post-war era it was the US that was behind a number of attempted coups and popular revolts in the outer island provinces, with the intention of weakening if not toppling the meddlesome Soekarno government altogether, which the US regarded as being suspiciously neutral and possibly even moving towards the Left.

Powerful allies

Following the anti-Communist putsch in 1965 which was also backed up by the US the Americans have proven to be the most useful and powerful allies to the Indonesian army and political elite. Jakarta's brutal handling of issues such as East Timor, the revolts in Aceh (North Sumatra), Irian Jaya and other hot spots in the country were conveniently put aside as the

Americans pumped in billions of dollars for both investment and securing their strong links to the Indonesian army. As was the case of American support for the Marcos regime they helped to install in the Philippines, the American government be they made up of Democrats or Republicans were behind the Soeharto regime right up to May 1998.

Throughout this period of authoritarian rule the West made little attempt to control the excesses of Soeharto's generals, notably men like General Prabowo, Benny Moerdani, Ali Murtopo or Hendryproyono (dubbed 'The Butcher of Lampung').

In fact the West was responsible for the arming and training of Indonesia's murderous special forces such as the Kopassus unit which remains at the core of the Indonesian army till today. No efforts were made to instil the values of democracy, human rights or good governance, and it was in fact the Islamist opposition that came to occupy the social vacuum that was created during this period.

It therefore comes as no surprise that the elections have witnessed the growing popularity and ascendancy of the new Islamic Reform and Welfare Party (Parti Keadilan Sejahtera) of Indonesia under the leadership of moderate Islamist democrats like Prof. Hidayat Nurwahid. Nurwahid's Keadilan party is a rare breed indeed: An Islamist party that has made constitutional democracy its main political framework and which has committed itself to social, political and economic reform via constitutional means.

Last year, while doing fieldwork in Indonesia, I attended an anti-American rally at the heart of Jakarta organised by the Keadilan party. The leaders of the party which included men like Prof. Nurwahid and other sympathisers like Prof. Nurcholish Madjid were present to denounce the military aggression of the USA in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. The demonstration was held in the centre of Jakarta, right in front of the historical Hotel Indonesia. More than 30,000 people crowded the streets, blocking the traffic and paralysing the capital for no more than two hours.

Civil society at work

What amazed me the most was the fact that this was the first major political rally I had attended in Indonesia where such a huge crowd was present but with not a single instance of violence. Nor were the supporters paid or bribed to be there, as is the norm with the other parties in the country.

As soon as the demonstration was over, they packed their things, cleaned up the rubbish they left behind, returned to their buses and went home. It was a case of civil society at work on its own, with no governmental interference or the threat of violence and force to keep law and order. By Indonesian standards, this could easily pass as a miracle.

But it is precisely here, among the new generation of Islamist moderate progressives that we are witnessing the real changes taking place in Indonesia today. Fed up with the same old faces mouthing the same tired rhetoric and empty platitudes they have been fed since independence, scores of younger Indonesians are turning to parties like the Keadilan party for alternatives, refuge and leadership.

The most outstanding feature of Prof Nurwahid's Keadilan party is that thus far it has remained clean of corruption; indeed the party leadership views corruption as the biggest problem in Indonesian politics and has taken strong steps to clean itself as well.

The same concerns were raised by Indonesia's Islamist movements Nahdatul Ulama (NU) and Muhamadijjah last year, when the two biggest Islamist NGOs in the country came together to make anti-corruption their common political manifesto. In a country where corruption, nepotism, abuse of power and state-sponsored violence have become the norm, it is the Islamist moderate opposition that is going against the tide of history and trying to deliver a different vision of how things can be run in the country.

These developments indicate that a change of mind-set is long overdue. During the three decades when Soeharto was in power, the Indonesian elite, army and their American allies regarded political Islam as the second biggest threat to Indonesian stability and territorial integrity (after communism).

While they entertained these delusions it was the same corrupted inbred political elite and their military cronies who effectively destroyed the social structure of Indonesia and brought the country to the brink of ruin. Today, as the early election results seem to indicate, the situation has proven to be exactly the reverse: While the corrupted and redundant elite of the past continue to drag the country down, it is precisely the Islamist democrats that have tried to put the house that is Indonesia back in order.

Dr FARISH A NOOR is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist. His 'The Other Malaysia' column appears in malaysiakini .