Jakarta dispatch

The people's president

While no one is sure how Indonesia's incoming president will tackle the nation's many problems, his resounding election victory means that he is starting from a position of strength, writes John Aglionby
When addressing the United Nations general assembly earlier this week, Indonesia's foreign minister, Hassan Wirajuda, described the current political events in his country as a "magnificent transformation".

For once, such prose is no exaggeration. Only six years after casting off the shackles of deeply-entrenched authoritarianism, Indonesians have gone to the polls three times in six months and elected themselves both a parliament and, for the first time in their history, a president.

The orderliness of the elections, particularly the presidential run-off on September 20 - which was the world's largest direct presidential election involving some 155 million registered voters - was exemplary. Yes, there were hiccups and minor rule violations but nothing of great significance.

Indeed, the archipelago with the nascent democracy, the country bedevilled by political, social, ethnic and economic crises, put the so-called "more mature" democracies in neighbouring Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines (where manipulation, if not blatant fraud are commonplace) to shame.

That's the good news. The better news, for fans of presidential challenger Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is that he won a massive 61% of the vote, arguably the largest share possible in a free and fair election.

How the retired general, who took time out from campaigning two days before the election to defend his PhD thesis in rural economics, will use his mandate is the question now on everybody's lips.

Western logic suggests Mr Yudhoyono can throw his reformist weight around to ensure promised reforms get enacted, particularly if challenged by recalcitrant legislators.

But Indonesia's culture of consensus-building and his own ministerial track record suggests he is more likely to tread a gentler approach, especially as his own Democratic party controls only 11% of parliament, while the coalition of parties that backed President Megawati Sukarnoputri in the presidential election have more than 300 of the 550 seats.

Complicating the analysis is the fact that Indonesian politicians are playing with a new rulebook that has yet to be completed.

Not only has the president been chosen directly for the first time but the new members of parliament, some 60% of whom are "freshmen", were elected in a more democratic way, making them more accountable to their constituents. Whether this means they will behave more responsibly remains to be seen but it is a step in the right direction.

Moreover, the country also has a brand new upper house, the Regional Representatives Assembly. While its powers on paper are limited, no one has any idea how it will flex its "advisory" muscles.

So everything is to play for but everyone will undoubtedly be waiting to see what sort of leader Mr Yudhoyono proves to be.

That is still hard to gauge, despite the fact that the election results have been clear for more than a week, because he has refused to comment on much while Ms Megawati refuses to concede, pending the official declaration of the result. That is due on October 5.

Titbits of policy direction are emerging, however. Aides say everything will stem from Mr Yudhoyono's ultimate priority of job creation.

Some 40 million Indonesians are either under or unemployed and about 40% of the 220 million population are living on less than $2 (£1.11) a day.

His problem is lack of money. To set the foundations of a post-economic crisis recovery, Indonesia has over the last few years had to prioritise macro-economic stability. The result has been more money going into pay debts and stabilising the banking sector than funding development programmes. At the same time desperately-needed foreign investors have been leaving Indonesia, driven away by crippling legal uncertainty, unpredictable corruption and punitive labour legislation.

People close to the incoming president say more money will be found from streamlining the notoriously venal customs and taxation systems, changing labour law by executive decree (and so bypassing parliament), and gradually raising fuel prices for all but the poorest in society.

In parallel to this, the attorney general will be ordered to prosecute some of the "biggest fish" as an opening salvo in the war against corruption. The judiciary is also likely to face a radical overhaul.

Issues such as resolving the 28-year-old separatist conflict in Aceh and the war on Islamist terrorism will almost certainly take a back seat.

Will Mr Yudhoyono succeed in achieving his goals, such as raising GDP from £538 per capita to £962 in five years? It's impossible to tell because he is relatively untested.

But if he can manage people's sky-high aspirations and persuade them to take some painful medicine early on then he has a good chance, because he has few political debts, much goodwill behind him and that massive mandate to fall back on.

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