Healing time in Jakarta

Healing time in Jakarta

INDONESIAN president-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been
busy taking soundings on choices for his Cabinet, which can have
a more decisive impact on the nation's recovery program than was
the case with previous administrations. But he has at the same
time shown becoming Javanese humility in offering to work with
the defeated Megawati Soekarnoputri.

For the sake of the country, it is to be hoped she would
respond to his call for reconciliation. The two had split after
he left her Cabinet as coordinating security minister to seek the
presidency. After his election victory was formalised on Monday,
he did not make an immediate acceptance speech.

Partly, it is in the nature of the man not to gloat in
triumphalism. Television images of him project an unforced
likeability, a sincerity, that almost certainly was a factor in
his election success. Partly, it is a cold calculation to secure
what support he can from parliamentarians of Megawati's PDI-P and
the wider coalition she had formed with Golkar. Together the
coalition holds some 300 of the 550 seats in the House of
Representatives.

It is unrealistic to expect that what is now the opposition
bloc in the House can be easily swayed. Golkar chairman Akbar
Tandjung has said that it is the opposition's mission to make the
going hard for the new president.

There is scope for some form of cooperation, and the
possibility should be explored. 'Whoever is chosen in a
democratic election has to be accepted because that is a victory
for all of us,' she said at a military observance this week. The
remark bore a hint of noblesse oblige which Susilo's aides would
want to pursue.

Megawati will soon leave office with a record of achievement
that should assuage to an extent her hurt at having been rejected
by the voters.

No one in Susilo's economics team can be under any illusions
that the recovery job will be smooth, but he can be thankful for
the spadework Ms Megawati has done.

-- The Straits Times, Singapore