Profile: Abdurrahman Wahid, New Indonesian President 　　Abdurrahman Wahid won the presidential election at a voting conducted by the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Jakarta on Wednesday afternoon. 　　Wahid is the general chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia with around 30 million members. 　　Born in Jombang, East Java, on August 4, 1940, Wahid, affectionately known as Gus Dur, is the oldest of six brothers. His farther, A. Wahid Hasyim, was a religion minister. Abdurrahman Wahid studied at a number of Pesantren, or traditional Islamic boarding schools in Java before undertaking tertiary level studies at the Al-Azhar Islamic University in Cairo, Egypt, in 1964. From Al-Azhar he went on to further study in the field of literature at the University of Baghdad in Iraq in 1966, and returned to Indonesia in 1970. 　　From 1972 to 1974, he was dean of the Faculty of Theology (Ushuludin) at the Hasjim Asyari University in Jombang. From 1974 to 1980, he became secretary-general of the Tebuireng Pesantren in Jombang. In 1978, he took up the leadership of Pesantren Ciganjur in South Jakarta. After moving to Jakarta in 1978, Abdurrahman Wahid became increasingly involved with the national leadership of NU. He was made first secretary (Katib Awal) of the NUSpreme Religious Council (Syuriyah) in 1979 in Jakarta. 　　In December 1984, at a National Congress meeting of NU, Abdurrahman Wahid was elected NU general chairman and re-elected in 1989 and 1994, for five-year terms. 　　In the early years of his chairmanship of NU, the government welcomed his presence as a voice for moderation and stability. In recent years, however, he has increasingly been seen as an opposition figure as he, together with some leading intellectuals, launched the ginger group "Forum Demokrasi" (Democratic Forum) to campaign for democratic reform. His public criticism of former President Soeharto had put him under considerable political pressure. 　　Abdurrahman Wahid upholds Islamic education and national reconciliation. 　　He was married with Nuriyah in 1968 and has four children. WorldNews 1999-10-21 Page6 Full Story in Chinese