In 1998 the Suharto ‘dynasty‘ was forced to bow out, as we know. Of course, the Asian financial crisis was the precipitating cause. But in assessing the manifold factors weakening its legitimacy over the longer term, let us not overlook the more authentic, challenging monarchical example of the sultan of Jogyakarta. In his analysis written some five years before Suharto’s downfall, Vatikiotis raised a tentative doubt about his staying power and a tacit question about a rival locus of legitimacy.Since Independence. Indonesia had tried almost the whole gamut of political system : first, constitutional democracy, then Sukarno’s ‘Guided Democracy’ , followed by a brief flirtation with Communism, and latterly something resembling a throwback to the patrimonial rule of the Hindu-Buddhist king of the pre-colonial period. But was neo-traditionalism a stable basis for perpetuation of the ‘New-Order’ , in all the circumstances? The funeral of Java’s last feudal king, Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, in October 1988, somehow suggested otherwise