6 - Megawati Sukarnoputri: “Limbuk Becomes Queen”

Summary

This chapter highlights the life and leadership of Megawati Sukarnoputri, who became the first modern Muslim woman head of the state. The eldest daughter of Sukarno, Indonesia’s national hero, Megawati emerged as a leader at a time when Indonesian society was in the grips of social and political crises. Her swift rise to power unsettled powerful men, who belittled her as only a “housewife,” and perceived her political campaigning as disruptive and subversive. Fearing rapid loss of his legitimacy, the dictator Suharto made political alliances with hardline Islamist parties to prevent Megawati’s presidential campaign. But he failed spectacularly to stop her or to dampen her public support. I discuss the intense political rivalry over the presidency following Suharto’s fall, and the appeal to the Prophetic hadith to disqualify Megawati. It became clear that it was not genuine religious conviction that sought to block a woman’s political advancement, but the intense anxiety of the male political elite whose political dominance was in jeopardy. She was neither a “stupid housewife” nor did her leadership doom Indonesia. She turned out to be a canny politician: calm and unpretentious, the likes of whom Indonesia had not seen before.