JAKARTA - JUST over a decade ago, mobs torched buildings across Indonesia's capital in an uprising that toppled a 32-year military dictatorship.

Today the world's fourth largest country, with its fragile democracy, is relatively peaceful as it heads toward Wednesday's presidential elections. The economy is bucking a global downturn, and Indonesian soldiers are posted as overseas peacekeepers instead of battling separatists at home.

The newfound stability - in a nation that previously saw three presidents in four years, a devastating financial meltdown and a string of terrorist bombings by Islamic militants - is the main reason voters are expected to return President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to office for a second five-year term.

'They have done a great job so far,' said Henry Silalahi, a 38-year-old insurance company accountant, referring to Dr Yudhoyono and his party. 'But it is not enough.'

Indonesians will be looking to Dr Yudhoyono to make greater strides against deep-rooted corruption and widespread poverty - major challenges facing the predominantly Muslim country of 235 million.

'Indonesia has been very, very successful,' said Sunny Tanuwidjaja, a specialist in politics and social change at the independent Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. 'But major hurdles for real democracy are still coming, and everything is possible.'

The election is a three-way race between Yudhoyono, a 63-year-old former general; Megawati Sukarnoputri, who ruled for three years from 2001-2004 and whose father was Indonesia's first president; and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the frontman of ex-dictator Suharto's former political machine, Golkar, who has paired up with retired General Wiranto. Gen Wiranto was indicted by the UN for rights abuses in East Timor.

Polls indicate that Dr Yudhoyono, who rose through the ranks during Suharto's brutal reign and has ruled for five years with the help of fundamentalist Muslim parties, has a comfortable lead and possibly enough to avoid a run-off on September 8.

Since the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesians have grappled with their Islamic identity, searching for a balance between religion - 90 per cent say they are Muslims - and their secular government.

Unlike the previous election in 2004, when Indonesians were shaken by Al-Qaeda funded suicide attacks that killed 240 people, most of them foreigners on Bali, the threat of terrorism has barely been an issue. -- AP

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