Rais, Mohammad Amien, << RY ehs, mo HAM ehd AH mehn >> (1944-…), served as speaker of Indonesia‘s People’s Consultative Assembly, the country’s highest government body, from 1999 to 2004. Rais had taken a leading role in the protests that toppled President Suharto in 1998.
Rais was thrust onto the national stage in 1995 after being elected head of Muhammadiyah, one of Indonesia’s two main Islamic organizations. That same year, he was appointed to a leadership position in the government-sponsored All Indonesia Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI). He was dismissed from ICMI in 1997 for publicly supporting term limits on Indonesia’s presidency and criticizing government policies. In 1998, Rais helped form the opposition National Mandate Party (PAN). In 2004, Rais ran in the nation’s first direct presidential election but lost.
Rais was born on April 26, 1944, in Solo, near Yogyakarta. He obtained bachelor’s degrees from Gadjah Mada University and Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic Religious Institute. In 1970, he returned to Gadjah Mada, where he became a member of the faculty. Later, he studied in the United States, earning a master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1974 and a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1981.
