Since President Soeharto stepped down, decentralization has offered a better governance system for this nation of more than 220 million people of varied ethnic groups spread over more than 15,000 islands. Despite its potential, implementation of decentralization has been riddled with unexpected problems. Decentralization turned out to have created problems, ranging from conflicts among people who refused regional fragmentation, conflicts between newly-created districts and the original, larger district from which they were created, and between local and central government.