FICKLE indeed is the power of the military dictator as the twentieth century draws to a close. Re-elected as president in March through Indonesia's strange constitutional processes, General Suharto's subsequent fall from grace has been dramatic. Fears of widespread bloodshed proved wide of the mark, in part because the Muslim leader sensed that events were moving in his direction and called off Wednesday's mass demonstration.

Of the hundreds who have died in the last fortnight the majority fell as a result of the activities of looters rather than the security forces. Whether the latter would have shot their own countrymen in large numbers had the generals ordered them to do so was never put to the test.

Latterly Suharto was under great pressure to concede democratic reforms. His support haemorrhaged at the end, not so much because he was a dictator as because he had shown himself to be incompetent in the handling of his country's economic crisis. Millions were impoverished as unemployment and inflation hit levels that could not even be recorded.

Suharto has been succeeded by a nonentity, Jusuf Habibie, who was the vice-president. He is unlikely to last long, and certainly not a full five-year presidential term. The task before him is enormous - to bring democracy to a country that has never known it where experience of government is confined to a narrow elite distrusted by most people and to rescue the economy from bankruptcy. He can only succeed if he has the backing of the opposition parties and the students, whose revolution this has been. Even then his role is no more than that of a caretaker.