The transition front authoritarian rule in Indonesia is not initiated by a division within the elite (hardliners versus soft-liners). In Indonesia. the elite did not initiate the reform; they only responded later. The masses, the non-elite actors, initiated the reform. Economic crisis (deprivation theory) is "necessary but not sufficient" to explain them. Availability of resources and the role of political entrepreneurs (resource mobilization theory) also played a critical role in mobilizing the protest events. Support of influential elites and the negative policies of the incumbent government at the time of the crisis (political opportunity structure theory) contributed to the magnitude and the power of those protest events. However, protest events not only accelerated political reform, they also spread hatred and bloody societal conflict based on religion, race and ethnicity.