Taufan Hidayat – Public protests are so common in Jakarta these days that they are regularly cursed – usually with good reason – by the gridlock-weary taxi drivers of Indonesia's capital. The country now benefits from a free and often cheeky press and personal freedoms have increased.
All this is a testament to the democratic reforms Indonesia has undergone since the 1998 fall of President Suharto, the autocrat who ruled for 32 years and left a long trail of corruption and human rights abuses.
But as the world's fourth-most populous country prepares for elections in 2004 it seems that Indonesian politics is moving back in time. Thanks to the grassroots organisation it has inherited from Mr Suharto, his Golkar party is shaping up as the favourite to win April's parliamentary elections. And lining up for the first round of presidential polls in July are former Suharto aides, cronies and even his daughter. Moreover, all of them are being taken seriously as candidates.
The explanation is a potentially powerful nostalgia for what many Indonesians are choosing to see as the better days of a still-notorious and not-so-distant past.
A poll released this month by the US-based Asia Foundation found 53 per cent of Indonesians agreed with the statement: "We need a strong leader like Suharto ... even if it reduces rights and freedoms." Because of the country's slow recovery from the economic crisis that contributed to Mr Suharto's downfall, Indonesians link democracy with ineffectual government, weak leadership and corruption, analysts say.
"People associate the Suharto era with a more effective government," says Hadi Soesastro, executive director of Jakarta's Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "Things functioned under his rule." In a recent report, the International Crisis Group blamed "elected politicians" for contributing to "disillusion with the democracy Indonesia has experienced for five years".
"Many ordinary people," the think-tank said, "look through rose-tinted spectacles to the Suharto era as a time of social peace and prosperity."
The political party most directly looking to take advantage of that nostalgia is the diminutive Concern for the Functional Nation party (PKPB). Founded on the orders of the former strongman, the PKPB is set to nominate President Suharto's daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, known as "Tutut", as its presidential candidate in January.
Hartono, the retired general who founded the PKPB, claims he is told regularly by people that they "miss" the 82-year-old Mr Suharto, who spends his days in his Jakarta home after a series of strokes.
The fruits of Indonesia's nascent democracy, he argues, are enjoyed only by a wealthy minority. "People don't need democracy," he says. "People need food, security and prosperity." Tutut is seen as a long shot to unseat the ever weaker President Megawati Sukarnoputri – the daughter of Mr Suharto's predecessor, Sukarno. However, there are also more serious candidates with Suharto links hoping to seize their chance in 2004.
Akbar Tandjung, current Golkar chairman, is appealing against a graft conviction, which may undermine his candidacy, but lining up against him as part of a Golkar primary race are six other candidates, most of whom share a chequered, Suharto-era past.
Among them is Prabowo Subianto, Mr Suharto's former son-in-law. But the leading contender to beat Mr Tandjung, analysts say, is Wiranto, a former Suharto adjutant defence minister. Like Mr Prabowo, his arch-rival, Mr Wiranto has been accused of human rights abuses. UN prosecutors in East Timor have indicted him, claiming he bore ultimate "command responsibility" for the 1,400 people killed there in 1999.
That makes him distasteful to the international community but it is unlikely, analysts say, to dent his popularity at home. "Indeed," the ICG wrote, "Wiranto would probably be more vulnerable electorally to charges of having failed to prevent the loss of East Timor."
It is too early to say what the return of the Suharto influence to Indonesian politics will mean and even whether it will last. Transitional democracies often flirt with nostalgia for the past, diplomats argue. In the kampungs – the village-sized communities into which Indonesia's cities and rural areas are divided – opinions are less cautious, though.
"Democracy is good. But here it's only a concept on paper," says Yahya Suhanda, a retired civil servant who plans to vote for Mr Wiranto. "This country has to be commanded autocratically, so that the reforms don't get out of control."
[Additional reporting by Taufan Hidayat.]