THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
NOVA POERWADI, INDONESIAN CORRESPONDENT: ...in 1996 in her party in one of the most violent ousters in Indonesia's recent history. And that also has added to her credibility and appeal.
DEBRA DAUGHERTY: Sukarnoputri, now the leader of the largest Muslim country and Indonesia's conservative Muslims say, she is unfit to be president because she is a woman. How much will gender effect her ability to lead?
POERWADI: Well there has been quite a shift among the Islamic parties and Islamic groups here, and many of them of course weighed in on the matter and compared her -- of course, there are comparisons with her predecessor, Abdurrahman Wahid, despite him being a male cleric, there were many objections to his controversial statements.
Whereas the then-Vice President Megawati, many people tend today to see her as a better manager of the government but of course the religious objections seems to have weighed somewhat and the discourse now among the Islamic parties and Islamic groups is that the ban on women leadership applies only to countries in which the system is a totalitarian system, whereas in the Indonesian Democratic system there is a, of course, leadership is not absolute.
DAUGHERTY: Nova, quickly if you would, the major challenges facing the new president; what are they?
POERWADI: Well, she has of course many challenges, the first of which is to get the economy back on track, and that is of course, a view by many as the key to resolving Indonesia's problems.
She also has to tackle the growing problem of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and the relations between Indonesia's diverse ethnic groups. Indonesia is a country of 200 or so different ethnic groups living together side-by-side, and they have lived together quite peacefully for the most part of the recent history, but the economic downturn really has brought up a lot of old differences.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN ANCHOR: And that was Nova Poerwadi talking to our colleague, Debra Daugherty.
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