Received from Joyo Indonesia News

The Australian April 5, 2004

'Statesman of Bali' favoured to have his own day in the sun

The star of former general Yudhoyono is shining bright, reports Jakarta
correspondent Sian Powell

AUSTRALIANS who mourned the dead at the first commemoration of the Bali
bombings will remember the man who is now the favourite in Indonesia's
presidential race.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, then Indonesia's chief security minister, moved
many to tears as he stood under the hot Bali sun, and spoke of the tragedy
that had ripped apart so many lives.

"They were our sons, our daughters, our fathers and mothers, brothers and
sisters, our cousins, our best friends, our soulmates," he said. "And they
were all innocents. They all had happy plans to spend 'tomorrow' under the
sun. They all had families to write and come home to."

It was a statesman-like oration and exactly suited the mood of the
mourners. SBY, as he is familiarly called, on Friday
became Indonesia's most popular presidential candidate according to two
of the nation's most reputable polls.

Today's massive nationwide election, canvassing 147 million voters, will
determine whether Mr Yudhoyono's tiny Democrat party follows on his
coat-tails. According to Friday's broad-based International Foundation for
Election Systems poll, the wily campaigner's support had doubled to 18 per
cent and outstripped that for President Megawati Sukarnoputri for the first
time.

An Indonesian Survey Organisation (LSI) poll also found Mr Yudhoyono rated
as Indonesia's most popular presidential candidate, with 31 per cent
support, followed by Mrs Megawati with 21 per cent support. Suddenly the
SBY star is shining bright.

It had been eclipsed earlier in the year, when he was forced to offer his
resignation as chief security minister in Mrs Megawati's cabinet,
ostensibly because he misused public advertisements to sell himself. The
ads featured an avuncular SBY calling for a peaceful election. They
particularly infuriated the President's husband, Taufiq Kiemas, who called
the security minister "childish".

Yet his resignation gave Mr Yudhoyono, a one-time army general, the
opportunity to spend all his time campaigning for his tiny Democrat party.
The complexities of both today's parliamentary election and the direct
presidential election scheduled for July means it is impossible to say with
any certainty how the cards will fall, but one thing is clear: SBY is now a
force to be reckoned with.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) political analyst Mochtar
Prabotinggi says that while Mr Yudhoyono is clearly a man of integrity, he
fears the former general has yet to shrug off the military influence of
years in the army elite.

Although not connected with the Indonesian military's more reprehensible
campaigns, Mr Yudhoyono was chief of staff of the Jakarta Regional Military
Command at the time of the attack on Mrs Megawati's party headquarters in
July 1996. It was a brutal Suharto crackdown on a rival political force and
the exact death toll remains unknown.

"That's what I'm worried about with SBY and the Democrat Party -- there's a
smell of the military," Dr Prabotinggi says.

Mr Yudhoyono is likely to be popular with Western governments, not least
because he has said all the right things about the war on terror. At the
Bali commemoration he said Indonesia would spare no effort to hunt down
those responsible for the attacks.

"Some are still on the run, but make no mistake: we will hunt them, we will
find them, we will bring them to justice."

He is pragmatic, too, about the nature of terrorism in Indonesia. Last year
he warned publicly that it was time to abandon the "international
conspiracy" theories and admit the Bali bombings and the Marriott blast
were the work of Indonesians.

Landry Subianto, a political analyst with the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies in Jakarta, believes SBY already has moved past his
military phase. Mr Subianto's concerns are more about the politician's
character: Mr Yudhoyono is known to be indecisive, dithering on critical
decisions.

"His style of leadership is seen as too cautious, too careful, and that's
ingrained in his personality," he says.

The showdown with Mrs Megawati actually became a selling point for Mr
Yudhoyono, Mr Subianto believes. He stood up to an administration that has
become increasingly disliked by ordinary Indonesians, and managed to do it
in a seemingly fair and honest way.

Dr Prabotinggi says it's entirely reasonable for the Indonesian electorate
to prefer SBY over the incumbent President. "He is much calmer than her,"
he says. "Besides, Megawati has disappointed and betrayed her supporters --
that's the real story."