For the students it was a case of "The king is dead, down with the king!"
After the initial euphoria of President Suharto's resignation wore off, the slogans which had papered every wall and roof of the Indonesian parliament were re written. Instead of "Down with Suharto" they became "Down with Habibie".
For the students the new president is a puppet of Suharto and a representative of the corrupt elite. But the outburst of joy when they first heard the news was unconstrained. They had spent an edgy night as rumours flowed to and fro about military attempts to remove them, possibly thorough a provocation.
Around midnight I saw them chase a man acting suspiciously who had been armed with a knife. The mood had begun to change in the early hours when rumours ran wild that President Suharto was going to address the nation at 9a.m. Hundreds gathered round a large television monitor in the filthy, dimly-lit foyer as a tired looking Gen Suharto appeared.
They listened silently until the only Indonesian president they have ever known told them: "I have decided to step down from office as the president of Indonesia, effective today, Thursday, May 21st, 1998, from the time I finish reading this statement."
At that they emitted a collective yell of jubilation which continued for several minutes. No one heard Gen Suharto go on to announce that under the constitution his deputy, Mr B.J. Habibie, would become president for the remainder of his term which ends in 2003. Nor did they hear Gen Suharto conclude by saying: "I beg forgiveness for any mistakes and shortcomings."
The students were dancing on the roof, leaping into the long ornamental fountain outside, jumping in the air and even rolling among the debris of three days of occupation.
Some wept, others prayed, couples hugged each other, incredulous that just nine days after troops killed four of their number at Trisakti campus in Jakarta, they had managed to bring down the leader they held accountable.
Nor were they in any mood for the forgiveness Suharto requested. Some of the new slogans said "Put criminal Suharto and his family on trial." Gen Wiranto, head of the Indonesian armed forces, whose central role in the drama was underlined by the fact that on television he handed Gen Suharto the piece of paper with the resignation announcement, anticipated such a move.
Immediately after Vice President Habibie was sworn in, the uniformed general stepped forward and said: "The military will protect all former mandated presidents, including Mr Suharto and his family."
This was a clear warning that the army would not tolerate a grab for the riches the outgoing president and his children had amassed - most Indonesian people believe corruptly and through nepotism - during his 32 years in office. The family may need such military assurances, aware of how President Marcos and his wife Imelda were hounded out of the neighbouring Philippines after the People Power revolution.
Indeed, Gen Suharto's eldest daughter, Ms Siti Hardiyanti Ruk mana, who controls one of Indonesia's leading toll-road companies, and was a minister in the cabinet, took the precaution of getting a British visa a week ago.
The former president's three daughters and three sons control a big sector of Indonesia's economy, including shares in banks and power companies.
His second son, Mr Bambang Trihatmodjo, heads a conglomerate which has interests in television, automobiles, property, construction, hotels and telecommunications.
The youngest son, "Tommy", owns companies which service Indonesia's vast oil industry and manufactures Timor cars, a frequent target of anti-Suharto rioters in Jakarta last week.
Up until this year "Tommy" held the lucrative monopoly on cloves, an essential ingredient in the country's popular kretek cigarettes. It was undoubtedly to protect his children's interests that President Suharto clung on to power so long, with the help of a system of favouritism under which he promoted loyalists to positions of power in the armed services and the administration. The end came when some of these loyalists turned against him, rather than risk further bloodshed.
The night before, Gen Wiranto had assessed the security situation with the three service chiefs and the head of the national police. The outlook was bleak. Students representing 50 universities were planning to stay in parliament until Suharto resigned. They had widespread support, even from the military.
"The building belongs to the people, all of us," said the Jakarta military command spokesman, Lieut-Col Nachrowi, explaining he had no orders to break up the demonstration.
The students had co-operated with the soldiers, calling in Jakarta's military commander, BrigGen Silalahi, when key documents went missing after two intruders infiltrated the student body.
Meanwhile, events elsewhere were moving fast. The US Secretary of State, Mrs Madeleine Albright, suggested publicly that Gen Suharto quit, signalling the end of international support. President Suharto had found it impossible to put together a reform committee he had promised on Tuesday, as academics had shunned it.
He had also angered the opposition by consulting pliant Muslim leaders but not Dr Amien Rais, the popular leader of the second-biggest Islamic group.
News came in of massive anti-Suharto demonstrations in other Indonesian cities, including one of 600,000 in Yogyakarta, the cultural heart of Java, led by the colourful local sultan. On top of this, business activities in the country were at a standstill as the turmoil entered its 10th day.
But the most damaging blow came on Wednesday when the majority Golkar party, of which Gen Suharto is patron, decided at a very tense meeting to convene an extraordinary session of the People's Consultative Assembly on June 8th to bring about Gen Suharto's resignation.
Nothing could illustrate more the depth of the anti-Suharto mood than this decision by his former loyalists. They were supported by the house speaker, Mr Harmoko. He had the power to call such a meeting which would in fact be an impeachment process during which Gen Suharto would be grilled and disgraced, a point relayed to the president in his Jakarta bungalow by a constitutional law expert, Mr Yusril Mahendra, who was consulted by all sides as the crisis deepened.
His advice was that there were three options open to the ageing president: to allow the impeachment proceedings to go ahead; to resign along with Mr Habibie, creating a power vacuum which would be filled by a council composed of the three ministers pending new elections; or to step down and hand over to Mr Habibie. The first two options were apparently unacceptable to the army.
A fourth, unconstitutional, option, that of repression, was also rejected - the explosion of anger last week when the population ran amok (a word borrowed from Indonesian) following the killing of four students had shaken the military establishment, which was unable to prevent massive destruction and the death of over 500 people.
Gen Suharto had no alternative but to hand over power to his long-time crony, Mr Habibie, and seek an assurance from General Wiranto, another protege whom he put in place in January, that the family would retain its status and wealth.
The decision was taken at one o'clock in the morning in the Suharto home. Its full implications did not dawn on the students until they listened to recordings of Gen Suharto's resignation statement.
The euphoria quickly wore off. They had got rid of "the old thief" as an economics student put it, but Habibie "is just the same, another criminal". A middle-aged woman, who said she worked on the president's staff, remarked in disgust, "He was always bowing and kissing Suharto."
Some said they would go home on Friday and prepare to resume classes on Monday after two weeks' break. But others said they would stay until Mr Habibie resigned and new elections were called. As disillusion set in, the Islamic Association of Indonesian Students called on Mr Habibie to "implement substantial reform as quickly as possible".
The students had tasted a heady victory; they did not want to be deceived by a compromise which left Mr Suharto's allies in place. They had opened up the political landscape for genuine democratic reform, but they felt they must be active and vigilant and not let their gains slip away.
Dr Amien Rais - an old friend of Mr Habibie - said yesterday he would wait to see the composition of the new cabinet, to be announced this morning, before deciding whether to endorse it; his advice will carry great weight with the students. But as of now they are staying put in the parliament.
Throughout the day yesterday, more and more students arrived to share in the celebrations of an astonishing victory, the toppling of the longest-serving Asian leader. Small trucks cruised around with volunteers throwing out drinks and bags of rice donated by a wealthy sympathiser. Students danced and sang and took pictures of each other.
In days to come they will all want to say they were there in the parliament, when the Javanese king, as Gen Suharto was known, was toppled.