Megawati Soekarnoputri - Indonesian Politician

Diah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri goes by the name Megawati Soekarnoputri or Mega and was the 5th president of Indonesia. Currently, she is the leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, which is one of the largest political parties in the country. In fact, she is the only female to have served as president or to lead a Muslim-majority country.

Megawati is the daughter of the first president of Indonesia – Sukarno. She is the first leader in Indonesia to be born after the country proclaimed independence. Soekarnoputri served under president Abdurrahman Wahid as the vice-president and became president after Wahid was removed from the office in 2001.

In 2004, she ran for re-election in the country’s very first direct presidential election but lost to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In 2009, she announced her candidacy in the presidential election but was overshadowed by changes to the voter registration system. Then in 2014, she was a top contender for the presidential election but her party instead nominated Joko Widodo as their candidate.

After Widodo defeated his opponent and became president, the relationship between Megawati and Widodo became strained due to personal politics. In 2016, Soekarnoputri was named one of the 20 most powerful and influential people in Indonesia by GlobeAsia magazine.

The feminine name Megawati is a combination of the Indonesian word mega that means “cloud” and wati that means “woman”. The name literally means “woman of the clouds”, which is derived from the Sanskrit meaning “cloud goddess”.