New leader brings new hopes

The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Indonesia's transition from a feudal-military entity has taken its biggest leap so far with the peaceful electoral transfer of power to a new President. Near-complete returns show that 122 million voters have handed victory to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general and security minister in two administrations, against the incumbent, Megawati Soekarnoputri, by the forecast 60-40 percent margin.

This has been a stunning progression from the Sukarno era's trademark "guided democracy" and Soeharto's absolute rule. The nation's achievement is more remarkable in that the leadership change in Monday's presidential run-off was decided by popular will.

It was untainted by voting fraud or intimidation. No known violence was reported. If the much maligned machinery of state could mount successfully and with little incident a logistical exercise of such scale, doubters can take heart that Indonesia is beginning to show what it is capable of. This is important.

The expression of democracy is a watershed event. But the Indonesian people and their Southeast Asian neighbors would want to see what the change in governing philosophy will mean in practical terms -- jobs, social calm, more dependable courts and law enforcement, and protection against organized terror and sectarian violence. There is also the matter of territorial unity against separatist tendencies.

The departing President deserves her people's appreciation for getting some things right in her short tenure of three years. The rupiah steadied on her watch. The people felt the difference in the inflation rate coming down from the frightful 58 percent in 1998 to 5 percent last year.

It is little realized that Indonesia averaged 3.8 percent growth from 2000 to last year. That made life more tolerable, a contrast with the standard image of street riots and bombings the outside world had of the country. She had oversight of free parliamentary and presidential elections which ironically have ended her public career, at least for now.

But the margin of forebearance permitted Megawati as the daughter of the nationalist who expelled Indonesia's foreign colonizers what may be denied Susilo. In part this could be because he is associated with a military past of the famous "dual function", which Indonesians want to put behind them, and he has cast himself as a beneficiary of the nation's democratic flowering.

So he can expect to be judged by the jobs and investment he can deliver, on the one hand, and a more efficient and accountable government on the other. A study shows that even at 4 percent growth, the projected figure, jobless numbers will rise by 1.1 million a year against the 2.5 million persons who enter the workforce.

Susilo's biggest immediate challenge is to make parliament a partner in his crucial reform program. His Democratic Party is a tiny presence, with 8 percent of the seats. He will need to get the dominant Golkar and Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) to work with him; otherwise he will lose valuable time mounting a rearguard action. This will test his leadership skills: How to make collaborators of political rivals.

Internationally, he can count on the active support of his principal neighbors Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia in investing in portfolio, manufacturing and tourism assets. The same level of cooperation can be expected of them in the anti-terror campaign, but joined by the United States and Australia.

The new President should make use of his mandate to stabilize Indonesia further as a polity, such that conditions improve sufficiently for other Asian and Western governments and corporations to want to invest in its future.