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The past 12 months has been a year of change. We have a new government led by a president who comes from the grassroots, with no ties to previous regimes. A clean break from the past. His cabinet includes nine women, the largest number ever to hold ministerial positions, one of whom is the nations first top diplomat. Jakarta has a new governor, the first ethnic Chinese elected to such a position in the history of Indonesia. A new beginning.

Change is clearly in the air when a Constitutional Court chief justice is arrested for bribery, found guilty and sent to life in prison. An impossibility a few years ago. All these changes have emboldened a once passive population to demand their role in a growing democracy, manifested in the waves of volunteers, who made effective use of the powerful social media to voice their aspirations.