IT was the day after the election, September 30, 1955. Not all the votes had been counted. But Sutan Sjahrir was convinced that the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI) had lost. “We failed to get public support,” he told party activists who had gathered at his home in Central Jakarta.

But some party members were still hoping for better news. “We were waiting for additional votes from the regions,” said Rosihan Anwar, who was at Sjahrir’s