Some analysts are describing the election as the end of the transition period from the overthrow of Suharto to a normalised process of politics. But, if the election is a victory for the Reformasi movement, how to explain the central role of politicians from the Suharto era? This issue was debated at the annual Indonesia Update at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Presenter/Interviewer: Graeme Dobell

Speakers: Dr Ariel Heryanto, senior lecturer, Indonesian Studies, the University of Melbourne; Dr Ed Aspinall, Lecturer, Southeast Asian Studies & History, University of Sydney.

Aspinall: The legislative and especially the Presidential elections of 2004 were simultaneously the crowning achievement of the Reformasi movement, and its ultimate frustration.

Dobell: Dr Edward Aspinall, who says both those views can be correct – that the Suharto era elite may have still be on top, but also, in the words of The Economist magazine, that Indonesians have "spawned the rarest of creatures, a vibrant Muslim democracy."

Aspinall: In this perspective, Indonesians, as it's sometimes put, have successfully learned the rules of the democratic game. There was more bitter take on the elections, however, although perhaps a minority view. It was a view ironically held by some of those who were most directly involved in the popular movement of 1998 that brought down the authoritarian Suharto regime.

In this view, the elections have been a formal success, but not a substantive one. The voters were offered were offered little genuine choice, the major candidates presented virtually identical policy platforms, they were backed by similar coalitions of power and interests, and many of the crucial issues for Indonesia's democratic future, such as issues to do with the role of the military, barely got an airing.

Dobell: Dr Ariel Heryanto says many Indonesians were unhappy both with the candidates and the result of the vote. But he says the important reality is that for the first time, an Indonesia election can mark the shape and direction of change – that Indonesians will drive their own history through a ballot.

Heryanto: Indonesia, historically, has not seen an election that becomes the motor for social change. When there were any social change of profound scale at all in Indonesia, it is always preceded by major violence. So if this election make a difference at all, that would be the first to become the motor of change. What we have in the past is usually social change that preceded the elections; social change that determined whether or not the election will take place and the quality of such elections.

Dobell: Dr Edward Aspinall says President-elect Yudhoyono is a product of the Suharto era, but comes to power using the language of Reformasi about the need for reform and renewal. The political analyst says the legitimacy of Indonesia's election marks the end of a transition period from the overthrow of Suharto, six years ago. He says one sign of the wide acceptance of this legitimacy is the decline in communal and separatist violence across Indonesia.

Aspinall: At last, Indonesia has a normal President, after the chaos and incompetence of his immediate predecessors. He is popular, in this understanding, not only for his apparent skills and confidence but perhaps also for his very blandness.

Dobell: The Yudhoyono victory shows the growing political importance of Indonesia's newly free media. In fact, one judgement about the campaign is that the media can take the place of the traditional grass roots party machine needed to get out the vote across the archipelago. Dr Ariel Heryanto says Indonesia trails Thailand in most areas of the transition to democracy – apart from the freedom of the media.

Heryanto: There were about 150 million people registered to vote in the election day. There are as many people, if not more, watching television every day, seven days a week. So, we are talking about something really new and something so decentralised – the dispersal of power there – to say that the media is simply new political machinery is an understatement. It is not simply the machinery, it is also the site of the battle.