Welcoming another new RI president

Bunn Nagara, The Star, Asia News Network, Selangor, Malaysia

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will be inaugurated as Indonesia's sixth president. The implications of this event's unique circumstances have been repeated in various commentaries, all intended to signal the future direction of the country.

The omens include Indonesia as the world's most populous Muslim nation and the largest country in southeast Asia, and Susilo being its first directly elected president -- and also a former general. For many, this is significant because of the country's dwifungsi (dual function) concept, in which the military has a customary hold on politics.

Speculation has been rife about Susilo's politics, and by extension the direction in which he will take the country. The various conclusions have been so varied as to be contradictory.

As a military officer, he underwent training at two U.S. military installations and later graduated with an MA in business administration from a U.S. university. Washington is not displeased with his impending presidency, fueling talk in Indonesia that Susilo is a "CIA agent".

Elsewhere he is described as a nationalist, and one mindful of Indonesia's role in the Muslim world. He has lately proclaimed the need to ensure a Palestinian homeland, a pledge his immediate predecessors as president had not made.

Human rights activists are chary of Susilo's links with the military, and his involvement in bloody suppression in East Timor, Aceh, Papua and Jakarta in previous administrations under which he served. His recent appointment of 14 retired military officers to his election campaign team did not help his civic image.

To his critics, a Susilo presidency represents a step back from a civilian-style democracy that a post-Soeharto era was supposed to herald. For others, Susilo promises military reform with a firm hand with which to guide the country through a difficult and uncertain period.

He is said to be a protege of former military chief Gen. Wiranto, and to have been part of the invading force that overran East Timor in 1975. But he is also known to be outside the military's inner circle, and his job as Minister for Security and Political Affairs under President Abdurrahman Wahid was to phase out dwifungsi.

Much has been speculated about Susilo as president, because little continues to be known about him. An election campaign that has centered on personalities rather than policies has made this situation even more acute.

The campaign was long on promises and short on specifics for both Susilo and his rival, incumbent president Megawati Soekarnoputri. The lack of policy detail is usually best interpreted as pragmatism, but since this vagueness applied to Megawati as well, it must mean something else again.

At grassroots level, Susilo is known to sing popular songs at public gatherings. But since one or two other generals are equally capable of such displays, it is not a measure of folksy popularity either.

Yet Susilo has secured a solid mandate with nearly two-thirds support from the electorate. Nonetheless, much of his popularity may derive from quite mundane realities: That precisely because he is such an unknown quantity, his presidential-sized flaws are still as unknown as any taint of scandal, and he is not Megawati.

In part, Susilo's massive win was due as much to his own appeal as to Megawati's decline into feckless obscurity. In four years she showed what she needed to do in office but had not done, so the people gave Susilo the chance to do them in the next four.

If a firm grasp of Indonesia's greatest needs is an ingredient of a successful presidency, Susilo is already on his way there. This has furthermore emerged despite the digression offered by typical proclamations in international news headlines.

Western countries like the U.S. tend to see terrorism as Indonesia's biggest challenge, while business partners like Singapore see it as corruption. Susilo, however, sees "rice-bowl issues" like jobs and education affecting Indonesians across the board as more important.

Who is more in touch with the realities of Indonesia's needs? Apparently it is the president-elect: According to a recent opinion poll by The Jakarta Post newspaper, Indonesians rated the following issues according to importance: Unemployment (32 percent), Education (23 percent), Separatism (17 percent), Corruption (14 percent) and Terrorism (12 percent).

Whether or not Susilo wishes it or others understand it, his presidency is part of continual change in Indonesian society that encompasses the political, the economic and the social. It is a wide-ranging, evolutionary change, quite distinct from the disjuncture of reformasi as street spectacle in the late-1990s.

Susilo may be something of an enigma to many, but to the masses he seems to exude a sense of quiet strength laced with intellect and integrity. More significant than his rank as four- star general or his PhD in agriculture supplementing his business degree, his impressive mandate in becoming Indonesia's first directly elected president gives him enormous clout to make all the changes he thinks necessary.

President Susilo will either succeed in renewing Indonesia, or Indonesia will succeed yet again in remaking a new president into something less than the people had hoped and expected. For now at least, the hopes and expectations are in the ascendant.

Despite the apparent confusion and occasional heady excess, Indonesia's succession of presidents has been reasonable and logical. Each one arrived at the post as a natural candidate of the circumstances at the time.

It took a leader of rare strength and ability to be the country's founding president, and Sukarno was the man of his times. The passionate, idealistic and popular nationalist had no peer in steering a country away from three centuries of colonialism.

Then as Sukarno faltered in his later years, opportunities presented themselves or were created for the benefit of unscheduled successors. A coup was plotted, lives were lost, blame was cast and a new New Order regime was born.

Soeharto became president and ruled with an iron fist. In time this produced economic growth along with that of the rest of the region, but Indonesians smarted at the costs and demanded more in their quality of life.

After more than three decades, President B.J. Habibie took over. But this German-trained engineer was never comfortable as president, nor was the presidency with him, and he soon proved to be no more than an interim post-Soeharto leader.

Megawati Soekarnoputri had for years been a thorn in Soeharto's side, while serving as his convenient punching bag. Being the daughter of Sukarno amplified her fate, which soon buoyed her political prospects in a post-Soeharto scenario.

But Muslim conservatives were still not comfortable with a woman president, so Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) stepped in as president in 1999 with Megawati as vice-president. Gus Dur soon made plain that between him and Megawati, she could at least seem to do a better job.

President Megawati came in with a raft of expectations and popular aspirations. She soon failed to impress, and after four years Indonesians felt a need for change again. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is now the person of the hour. He appears better qualified and more experienced than his immediate predecessors, so the hopes on him remain.

But the scale of Indonesia and its challenges may continue to overwhelm even the most promising leaders.

If Susilo does little better than the previous presidents, he would at least have raised the standards of mediocre presidencies.