Sutikno had a great chance of becoming mayor of Surabaya. He was the strongest candidate from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle—PDI-P—the party of reform and winner of the historic 1999 general election. The party leadership in Jakarta endorsed his candidacy and PDI-P had 22 of the 40 seats in the local legislature. Surely he would win. But his supporters proved overconfident.

In support of his bid, his backers had asked a