Slow and steady SBY gains ground

John McBeth, The Straits Times, Asia News Network/Singapore

It is unspoken, of course, but there are many impatient Indonesians who wish President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would dispense with the velvet glove and start using the mailed fist.

Seven months into his presidency, most people give him an A- plus for style, for his obvious sincerity and for doing the right things. But even at this early stage, there are those who see too many promises and not enough real action. In short, the "I" word -- indecision -- that has haunted him for years.

It is all quite unfair, of course. According to his aides, Susilo believes in doing everything by the book. That means having to work within the system -- as flawed as it is -- while trying to clean up corruption and introduce incremental reforms. Previous reform-era presidents did little except tinker at the edges. This one is trying to do the toughest thing of all: change the national mindset that has endured since then president Soeharto's downfall seven years ago.

In fact, Susilo may just be the leader Indonesia has been yearning for, a leader who is not an accepted member of the traditional Jakarta elite, yet has instincts that often seem at odds with his nearly three decades in the military. His efforts at finding a peaceful settlement in Aceh, for example, have not always been appreciated by conservative generals. Nor was his decision to bring in foreign forces to help in last December's tsunami relief operation, even though it was the obvious thing to do and helped define the early days of his presidency.

There have been some missteps. His decision to set overly ambitious targets for his first 100 days was doomed from the beginning. The invitation for people to SMS complaints to his hand-phone predictably crashed the system.

Politically, he has been handicapped by having to choose a Cabinet last October that reflected the uncertainties at the time. No-one really believed Golkar would follow former leader Akbar Tandjung into Megawati Soekarnoputri's sourpuss opposition, but in the end it did take Vice-President Jusuf Kalla's personal intervention at the December convention to bring the party on board. As things have predictably turned out, getting an entrenched bureaucracy to respond to the political process and implement directives has been a lot more problematic than dealing with Parliament.

It seems almost certain that the President will reshuffle his Cabinet in November, once he has completed a promised evaluation of his ministers. Political calculations remain difficult to determine, but there are already indications that he will replace ineffective Finance Minister Jusuf Anwar with feisty National Planning Minister Sri Mulyani Idrawati. She was his first choice last year anyway, but he ran into strong resistance from nationalist-Islamic politicians concerned about her previous job at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Another key figure to go may be State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra, a former leader of the minority Muslim-orientated Crescent Star Party, whose well-known taste for intrigue and obstructionism has never engendered real trust among his fellow ministers. Well-placed government sources say that, as a result, many of the traditional duties of the man who heads the presidential office have been taken off him and split between the President's Cabinet Secretary, Sudi Silalahi, and Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin.

Perhaps the biggest concern about the Susilo presidency is the absence of an inner circle of advisers who can help him set an agenda. He may know in his own mind where he wants to go, and there is no question that he does listen to advice, but as one senior government official told The Straits Times: "It's the problem of a smart guy who knows he is smart and runs the country on his own initiative."

More than that, Susilo survived four presidencies with his reputation intact, largely by keeping his distance from anyone who may ask for or dispense favors. "He's sent a message that says 'Keep your distance', so people are not keen to stick their necks out for him," observes Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, a ministerial veteran of the Soeharto and Abdurrahman Wahid administrations.

"So when ministers are confronted by the press, they always pass the buck upstairs."

Indonesian analysts, perplexed over the phenomenon of a vice- president who for the first time has a real role in government, continue to fret about the so-called rivalry between Susilo and Kalla. What they cannot seem to understand is that these are two very different men who do a lot of things differently. Susilo likes to think over things, which is one of the reasons why he is considered indecisive. Kalla is a gunfighter who has a tendency to over-reach and shoot from the hip.

That does not make them rivals. They might even complement each other. After all, they do talk five or six times a day. Ministers who work with both dismiss talk of rivalry and one senior presidential aide even insists they are getting "closer and closer". Take the occasion recently when Kalla was accused of making the Aceh talks a one-man crusade. With the whole initiative still hanging in the balance, Susilo could have let him hanging out there like a ripe durian. Instead, he came to the rescue and repeated his backing for the peace move.

Little by little, Susilo is consolidating. His recent promotion of hard-charging Gen. Sutanto as police chief could make a huge difference, in everything from fighting terrorism to solving the bizarre murder of human-rights activist Munir Said Thalib -- still one of the biggest challenges to the President's resolve. He has also handled the military adroitly, promoting another trusted figure, Gen. Djoko Santoso, as army chief of staff and sidelining Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu, a hardline Megawati loyalist whom his bitter predecessor had left behind like a live hand grenade.

In early May, apparently concerned over a lack of coordination in the fight against corruption, he effectively took over prosecutorial powers himself by appointing a 51-strong presidential task force -- comprising prosecutors, police and auditors -- to investigate high-profile cases.

Critics point to the fact that only Aceh provincial governor Abdullah Puteh has so far gone to jail for corruption. Yet at no time in Indonesia's history have so many people been investigated or declared suspects for stealing public funds. There is only one lingering problem. It could take at least another generation before the country's flawed legal system can be counted on to return judgments rooted in transparent argument and free of the implications of bribery.

It is a burden the President will have to bear, but there is no doubt he is serious. At a six-hour Cabinet meeting on July 8, he surprised his ministers by launching into a long-winded discourse on the principles of his government, pointedly reminding them of the "no corruption" contracts they had signed when they were sworn in.

"We were looking around wondering who he was talking to," says one minister.

Come November, if he feels sufficiently secure in the job, they might finally know.