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Despite the naysayers’ skepticism, Indonesia has proven that democracy can flourish in a country that was ruled by an authoritarian regime for more than 30 years, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.

“Ten years after we held our first ‘Reformasi’ free elections in 1999, democracy in Indonesia is irreversible and a daily fact of life,” Yudhoyono said, delivering the keynote speech at the sixth World Movement for Democracy forum on Monday at the Shangri-La hotel.

Successful elections, strong economic growth, religious tolerance and checks and balances among the branches of government all demonstrated the maturity of democracy in Indonesia, he said.

Yudhoyono said one of the big challenges to a lasting democracy is the prevalence of money politics. Politicians could wage a dirty campaign and confuse the public with deception, he said.

“Money politics can seriously undermine democracy because it induces elected leaders and politicians to serve their pay masters at the expense of the public good,” he said.

However, the president also said the country has witnessed an increase in the number of voters who cast their vote in a responsible, careful and rational manner.

Yudhoyono pointed out that in the early days of reform, the country was dealing with issues including economic contraction that reached 12 percent, East Timor’s secession and the emergence of terrorist bombings.

“We proved the skeptics wrong,” he said, adding that the country’s democracy has grown stronger, as demonstrated by the past three free and fair elections, the peaceful resolution to the separatist conflict in Aceh and the economic and political reforms in Papua.

Comparing the situation with the pre-reform era, Yudhoyono said the people no longer had to choose between economic growth and individual freedom.

Under Suharto’s dictatorship, Yudhoyono said, Indonesia’s political development was overshadowed by “an authoritarian system that sought stability, development and national unity at all costs.”

“Today, our democracy is growing strong,” Yudhoyono said. “While at the same time, Indonesia is registering the third-highest economic growth among G-20 countries, after China and India.”

Yudhoyono said that what makes Indonesian democracy successful is the fact that the force of change came from the people themselves, without pressures imposed from the outside.

“Yes, our democracy came out of a political crisis that was triggered by the financial crisis in 1997, which originated from outside our borders,” he said. “But the desire to get rid of corruption, collusion and nepotism came wholly from within.”