Susilo's campaign hangover, time for real action<\/p>\n
Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Had he known from the start, Army General Susilo Bambang
\nYudhoyono probably might have backed away from his current job.
\nWhat kind of a job is he in, when even taking a break from his
\ndaily routine reaps criticism?<\/p>\n
The President quipped while he was in the United States that
\nback-patting, which he got aplenty there, was a rare commodity at
\nhome. He might have been joking, but that could be a serious
\nquestion posed to himself.<\/p>\n
Although he said he had no time even for coffee while in the
\nStates, the criticism that irritated him was justified. One
\ncriticism goes that he had earlier asked his ministers to scrap
\ntheir unnecessary foreign trips to save costs, but now he did it
\nhimself. His entourage totaled almost 100 people, including his
\nwife and son.<\/p>\n
The disheartening irony, is that the UN summit which was
\nsupposed to be the main agenda of the visit, turned out to be a
\ngathering of the world elite to confirm the lesser status that
\ndeveloping countries should be accorded to in today's world.<\/p>\n
Critics also resented his half-a-billion rupiah Cabinet
\nmeeting via video-conferencing technology. They were costly and
\nhelped fuel speculation that he had less trust in Vice President
\nJusuf Kalla.<\/p>\n
As he went back to work on Monday here, the total number of
\npeople sick with avian influenza has soared. The rupiah has not
\nrecovered from its downward slide beyond the Rp 10,000-to-the-
\ndollar barrier and fuel shortages have spread to more provinces.
\nThe list seems exhaustive.<\/p>\n
The fight against corruption has been half-hearted, with
\nseeming impunity for those with the right connections. The same
\ngoes for perpetrators of human rights abuses. Susilo could have
\ndone a lot in those two areas and that would have bolstered his
\ndwindling popularity.<\/p>\n
At the grassroots level, people are taking the law into their
\nown hands, with the most recent case being another attack against
\nAhmadiyah this week, in addition to the attempted expulsion of
\nthe liberal Muslims from their East Jakarta home-base, forced
\nclosures of Christian places of worships and violent chaos
\nstemming from disappointment of local elections results as
\noccurred in West Sumatra over the weekend.<\/p>\n
A renewed hope blew across the country when Susilo was elected
\npresident last October. Such an optimism is logical since the
\ncountry has been marred by a leadership crisis for six years
\nafter Soeharto fell from power in 1998.<\/p>\n
Just like the day after a big storm, Indonesian skies seemed
\nto be clearing up when Susilo and Kalla took the helm. Hence, the
\nsuspected tension between the two now is a setback.<\/p>\n
Although such suspicions have been officially denied, some
\nfeel that it was a New Order-esque denial wherein the truth is
\noften the very thing being denied.<\/p>\n
This country has had enough of leadership rifts. Susilo
\nhimself was a senior security minister last year before he ran
\nfor president against then incumbent Megawati Soekarnoputri.<\/p>\n
Looking back at history, first president Sukarno and first
\nvice president Mohammad Hatta fell out in the late 1950s. Sukarno
\nhad strained relations with his successor Soeharto.<\/p>\n
The fourth president, Abdurrahman \"Gus Dur\" Wahid won power
\nafter outsmarting his rival, Megawati Soekarnoputri, whose party
\nhandily won the 1999 legislative election -- meaning she really
\nshould have been voted in the legislature at the time.<\/p>\n
A leadership rift is thus the last thing the country needs at
\nthis point in time. People are getting impatient now that Susilo
\nhas been in power for almost a year, for there is too much hope,
\nbut too little action. Poverty, unemployment and the sufferings
\nof the common people have hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n
There are reasons to worry that Susilo has been carried away
\nby the very success of his public relations campaign that won him
\nthe highest office. A candidate from a small and obscure
\npolitical party, Susilo defeated Megawati who led the strong and
\ninfluential Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) in
\nthe first direct presidential election.<\/p>\n
The success might have forced him to struggle in shifting
\nrealities from perceived realities, a pet stuff in public
\nrelations' parlance. Although he has won praise for some things
\nto carry him forward, most notably being his successful handling
\nof the Aceh tsunami, still, responses to this nation's enormous
\nproblems have been slow to come. Resoluteness is something
\ngrossly missing in his leadership.<\/p>\n
For those who stand in his way in his bid to establish good
\ngovernance, Susilo might well ask the same question that George
\nW. Bush's did after the Sept. 11 attack whether \"they are with us
\nor with them?\".<\/p>\n
Susilo needs to get up from his presidential campaign
\nhangover. Someone has to tell him: \"Get up Mr. President, the
\ncampaign period is over. It is now time for real action.\"<\/p>",
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