Mr. Basuki’s rise is a mark of the gains made by ethnic Chinese politicians since Indonesia’s transition to democracy in 1999 — particularly since direct elections were implemented at all levels of government, including local offices that were once filled by appointment.

“While there were no actual political restrictions, for all intent and purposes, Chinese were restricted from the public domain for decades,” said Kevin Evans, founder of Pemilu Asia, an Indonesian firm that collects political data. “With direct elections of district chiefs, mayors and lawmakers at the provincial level, ethnic Chinese are running and winning, and winning in districts where the Chinese population is a small minority.”

Though Chinese-Indonesians make up just over 1 percent of the vast Indonesian archipelago’s population, historically they have tended to wield economic clout beyond their numbers, which has often led to resentment. For decades, they were subjected to discriminatory laws and regulations.

Anti-Chinese sentiment exploded into rioting in cities across Indonesia in 1998, amid protests against then-President Suharto’s authoritarian rule. In Jakarta, more than a thousand people were killed in the rioting, more than 150 women were raped and entire blocks in the Chinatown district were razed.

While some affluent Chinese families fled to neighboring Singapore after the riots, Mr. Basuki’s family stayed. “We are descendants of China, but our motherland is Indonesia,” he said.

A former mining consultant, Mr. Basuki first ran for office in 2005, winning a local election on his native island of Belitung, off the southeast coast of Sumatra, in a district where 93 percent of the voters were Muslim. “I asked them why they wanted me to run, because I am of Chinese descent and a Christian,” he recalled of the local residents who approached him. “They said, ‘We don’t care — we know who you are. We know your character.’ ”

Bambang Harymurti, who was an editor in chief of Tempo magazine, a leading Indonesian newsweekly, said that some Indonesians, particularly in Jakarta’s more affluent circles, have a phobia about Chinese-Indonesians’ growing participation in high-level politics.