25 years of reforms: Indonesia’s democracy back on slippery slope

A student walks past the May 12 Reformation Park in Grogol, West Jakarta, in this file photo taken in 2020. The park was built in memory of the four students who were killed in a peace rally demanding reforms in May 1998.- Jakarta Post/ANN

JAKARTA, May 22 (Jakarta Post/ANN): Twenty-five years since the start of the Reform era, which had carried the hopes for democracy and stronger civil rights, the nation finds itself in a familiar position, with renewed efforts to bring back what observers fear to be the hallmarks of the autocratic New Order regime.

Beginning on May 12, 1998, Jakarta was consumed by ten days of racially-charged rioting that shook the entire country, sparked by a student-led peace march that went awry.