Welcoming another new RI president

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.