Portal:Indonesia/Featured biography

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Haji Mohammad Soeharto (born June 8, 1921), more commonly referred to as simply Soeharto (General Suharto in the English-speaking world), is a former Indonesian military and political leader. He served as a military officer in the Indonesian National Revolution, but is better known as the long-reigning second President of Indonesia, holding the office from 1967 to 1998.

Suharto seized power from his predecessor, the first president of Indonesia Sukarno, through a mixture of force and political maneuvering against the backdrop of foreign and domestic unrest. Over the three decades of his "New Order" regime, Suharto constructed a strong central government along militarist lines. An ability to maintain stability and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic patronage of several Western governments in the era of the Cold War. For almost all of his three-decade rule, Indonesia experienced rapid industrialization and economic growth.