INDONESIA: Five More Years

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Little was left to chance. The much feared security command, KOPKAMTIB, ordered Indonesia's 125 million citizens to refrain from violence or even controversy. As a special precaution against the spreading of untoward ideas, Mission Impossible and The Untouchables were temporarily banned from the nation's air waves. Then the 920 delegates to the People's Consultative Assembly, a military-dominated body whose deliberations take the place of national elections, gathered in Jakarta's high-domed amphitheater to select Indonesia's President for the next five years.

Some elected (in a controlled fashion) and some appointed (in an even more controlled fashion), the delegates were essentially of one mind before they convened. But they went through almost two weeks of carefully orchestrated ritual and ceremony before finally reaching their unanimous choice: the incumbent President, General Suharto.

Contrived though the Assembly's vote may have been, there is no doubt that Suharto would win the presidency if he went directly to his people, the fifth-largest national population in the world. For the former farm boy who turned revolutionary has shown considerable administrative ability since he seized power seven years ago from the erratic father of Indonesian independence, President Sukarno. Having saved his country from a threatened Communist coup, Suharto proceeded to rescue it from bankruptcy. His most dramatic achievement was to cut the annual rate of inflation from a staggering 635% in 1966 to as low as 2% last year.

Suharto's economic planning board, called BAPPENAS, has secured $3 billion in foreign-government loans, about one-third from the U.S. Over the past five years, private foreign investors have poured in an additional $3.7 billion and set up 575 companies.

"We are still lacking in capital and skill," President Suharto told TIME Correspondent Roy Rowan. "There are bigger projects to be tackled, like the exploitation of liquefied natural gas. That project alone would require $800 million to $900 million. I will try to improve the apparatus for investment, but in the end everything depends on the willingness of U.S. businessmen to invest here."

Indonesia has rich oil and mineral deposits, but major problems remain. The average annual per capita income is still less than $100, and more than 40% of the population is illiterate. Unemployment continues to climb, and the net annual population increase of 2.8% is no help. In an attempt to curb it, teams fan out over the paddyfields preaching family planning.