Jakarta – Indonesians took to the streets in angry protests over the soaring cost of food and a planned fuel price hike Wednesday, as an economic "crisis" overshadowed the 10th anniversary of Suharto's fall.
Demonstrations were under way across the country against the government's plans to raise the subsidised cost of fuel by as much as 30 percent to protect the budget from record world oil prices.
Indonesia has seen almost daily protests against the fuel price plans and the rising cost of food in recent weeks, but tensions were higher Wednesday, exactly a decade after the collapse of the Suharto regime. A similar announcement of a fuel price rise triggered the mass protests that eventually toppled the dictator.
But in contrast to the late general, who ruled with an iron fist for 32 years, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – the country's first directly elected leader – welcomed the protests as a healthy exercise of democracy.
"In democracy, protests are normal as long as they are orderly," he said, dismissing concerns that they could get out of control ahead of elections next year.
"The government, since the beginning and up until now, continues to implement policies and take real action to overcome the problems and to protect those hit hardest by the impacts of this crisis."
Yudhoyono is under mounting pressure to announce the size of the fuel price hike, which he has said could be up to 30 percent. A hike on that scale would see the cost of gasoline in Southeast Asia's biggest economy climb to 6,000 rupiah (65 cents) from 4,500 rupiah.
To compensate the poor, the government is planning to transfer more than 1.5 billion dollars in cash handouts to millions of low-income families.
But protesters on the streets of Jakarta and other cities – where people pay the lowest fuel prices in Southeast Asia – said there were other ways to help working families and counter the impact of high oil prices.
"The government must renegotiate with oil exploration companies dominated by foreign countries to ask for more profits. If they don't agree we have to take firm measures to take over those companies," said Rudi, a protester in Jakarta.
Sri, a housewife, said: "The rise of fuel prices will strangle us. It's hard for a housewife like me as the price of everything has risen even before the announcement" of the fuel price hike.
About 1,000 people took part in rowdy but mainly peaceful demonstrations in Jakarta, scenes reflected in towns across the country. Several thousand students occupied the West Sumatra council building in the provincial capital of Padang, ElShinta radio reported.
Another 2,000 students in Makassar, South Sulawesi, formed a convoy of motorcycles, trucks and cars and drove to a downtown monument and the regional parliament.
None of the demonstrators expressed concern about the lack of progress on issues such as the fight against corruption in the decade since Suharto resigned.
The late dictator, who died in January, brought economic progress and stability to the archipelago at the expense of democracy and human rights.
"Ten years have passed. Suharto died in January. We are still unable to recover from the economic disaster? But we need to remember that we deserve to take pride in our democracy," the Jakarta Post said in an editorial.
It was an "amazing achievement that Indonesia has been able to transform itself after five decades of dictatorship into the world's third-largest democracy after India and the United States," it said.