Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie or B.J Habibie is widely known as the former President of the Republic of Indonesia from 1998 until 1999, as the successor of Soeharto who finally ended his leadership in 1998.
Habibie was born on 25 June 1936 in Pare-Pare, South Sulawesi province, Indonesia. Since he was a kid, building model aeroplanes had been one of his interests and continued even during his study years at the Bandung Institute of Technology. He then took the further study at the Technische Hochschule of Aachen where he studied aircraft construction engineering and graduated from the Aachen Institute in 1965 with a doctoral degree.
Actually, the close relationship between Habibie and Suharto was first formed when Suharto attended the funeral of Habibie’s father in 1950 to a point where Habibie regarded Suharto as his own father even until years after. Often labelled as a Suharto’s man, during his presidential era, Suharto instructed Habibie to return to Indonesia to assist him set up advanced industries.
He was also appointed as Minister of Research and Technology where he exploited his influence and relationship with Suharto to sign many deals for his own companies, but at the same time, he was also confident that Indonesia could climb the technology ladder.
In March 1998, Suharto chose Habibie as the Vice President and only two months after, the country experienced the May 1998 riots of Indonesia that were sparked by various economic problems. Suharto announced his resignation and Habibie gained the title of president.
Implementing major reforms to the country, Habibie’s leadership was the golden era for some prisoners and East Timor, as he granted amnesty to political prisoners and allowed East Timor to gain its independence. Habibie stepped out of his political career after Abdurrahman Wahid, or Gus Dur won the October-election and set up a political research institute called the Habibie Center in 2000.