In his autobiography, Indonesia's former dictator wrote: "When he [Jusuf Habibie] reports to me, he spends hours with me only because he wants to understand what I think of the matters he puts forward, what my philosophy is. . .He regards me as his own parent." Critics of nepotism and of this relationship call the new president: "Suharto Junior".
The choice of Mr Jusuf Bacharuddin Habibie as Suharto's vice-president earlier in this troubled year appears to be the fallen Father of Development's attempt to exert influence until his dying day. But several analysts, in business and opposition, say Mr Habibie represents transition, not change. He is the kind of big spender a nervous IMF does not feel it needs to bring the rule of law to Indonesian business. He has said he will fight corruption but he is widely seen as its embodiment.
Ex-president Suharto apparently enjoyed Jusuf's mother's "stories in Javanese" when Jusuf was a lad of 13, and was present when Jusuf's father died. Since then Gen Suharto has kept an avuncular eye on his protege.
The academically brilliant Jusuf went to Germany to learn the future. He became an aeronautical engineer and an economic high flyer who, as Research and Technology Minister and as vice-president, has put the heart across army officers, Indonesia's pribumi (non-Chinese businessmen) and foreign investors alike.
Indonesia's rupiah plunged to an historic low of 17,000 to the dollar when Habibie was first mentioned as Gen Suharto's vicepresident last January.
His relationship with the military has been volatile. Mr Habibie's 1994 purchase of 39 ships from the East German navy was offensive to army commanders used to a monopoly on military purchasing. It was said in the army of Gen Try Sutrisno, Mr Habibie's intellectually challenged predecessor as vice president, that at least "he isn't Habibie".
Mr Habibie's love of the grand project, his wish to build a strong corporate sector in, for example, steel, plastics, chemicals nuclear power - or small arms - leaves the pribumi cold and feeling unnurtured.
His reputation as an eccentric scientist who talks through his hat was boosted last year when he said the government should cut high interest rates to decrease inflation, then raise them again before cutting them again in a zigzag pattern to promote economic growth.
Mr Habibie (61) does not have the common touch of Gen Suharto (76), who is of peasant stock. Gen Suharto's protege will not have the rural constituency. But on the credit side his short presidency is thought likely to enhance the role of Islam as a part of Indonesia's national identity.
Mr Habibie was appointed by his mentor to the chair of ICMI, the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals' Association, partly as a way of emasculating its stridency. It is likely that several ICMI luminaries will be included in the Habibie cabinet. But this could also represent an attempt to co-opt the people's power leadership.
But a big test for him, or his successor, will be how he deals with the tensions between the Chinese entrepreneurs, the pribumi family business class, and the wider society.
Other tests lie in the area of freedom of expression. Will he allow three publications banned, on his own encouragement, in 1994 after criticism of the East German deal, to reopen? Will he free hundreds of political prisoners including 11 contemporaries of the vengeful Suharto who have been incarcerated since Indonesia's holocaust of 1965?
And will he feel able to make another break with a repressive generation by allowing Indonesia's internationally-celebrated writer, and 1965 activist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, to publish his satires within Indonesia? Then there is "the pebble in the shoe" of East Timor.
Mr Habibie is thought least likely to disregard Suharto's 1976 injunction to him: "You can do anything except foment a revolution."