ANALYSIS: Landslide win gives Yudhoyono freer hand on reforms

By Ahmad Pathoni Jul 10, 2009, 5:16 GMT

   Jakarta - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's all-but-assured landslide victory in this week's election gives him a stronger mandate to pick professionals for his next cabinet and push through reforms, analysts said.

   Analysts said key portfolios, including the economy, were likely to be filled with competent technocrats instead of members of his coalition allies.

   'There's a good chance that SBY will give it all-out in his second term,' said Latif Adam, an economist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, using the president's initials.

   'In the past, SBY didn't want to ruffle feathers, but this is the last chance for him to show that he can make significant improvements,' he said of the president, who is limited to two five-year terms and cannot run again in 2014.

   An early vote count by the General Elections Commission, the official body that organized Wednesday's presidential poll, showed Yudhoyono leading with 61.7 per cent of the vote.

   Unofficial counts showed he won a clear majority, allowing him to avoid a September run-off.

   Ahead of the voting, Yudhoyono defied pressure to pick a member of his coalition allies, mainly Islamic parties, as his running mate and instead chose former central bank governor Boediono, an economist with a reputation for competence and independence.

   Fachry Ali, a political analyst at the University of Indonesia, said Yudhoyono's decision to pick Boediono, showed that he had a focus on improving the economy.

   'He wants to break away from the shackles of political parties in decision making,' Fachry said. 'The government will be more market-friendly.'

   Although often criticized as indecisive, Yudhoyono, 59, has been credited with some successes in his first term, including stabilizing the economy, cracking down on deep-rooted graft and bringing peace to rebellious Aceh province.

   But critics said progress in other areas, such as infrastructure and poverty reduction, has been slow.

   Yudhoyono ran against former president Megawati Sukarnoputri and current Vice President Jusuf Kalla in Wednesday's election. They had 28.6 and 9.8 per cent of the vote, respectively, in the commission's tally.

   Megawati said Thursday that she was considering challenging the election results, saying the electoral commission had failed to respond to her complaints about duplicate names on the voter rolls and that many voters were unable to cast their ballots.

   Analysts said they believed any challenge was unlikely to change the result.

   Yudhoyono, a former general who rose in the military ranks under former dictator Suharto, is largely untainted by the excesses associated with the late autocrat's 32-year rule.

   Experts have hailed the elections as an indication of how Indonesia has come a long way since the turmoil that marked Suharto's departure in 1998.

   A decade ago, South-East Asia's largest economy was in shambles, being hard-hit by the region's 1997-98 financial crisis.

   Until a few years ago, Indonesia still grappled with a separatist insurgency in Aceh, deadly bombings carried out by Islamic militants and Muslim-Christian violence in the east of the country.

   Hadi Sasastro, an analyst with the Centre of Strategic and International Studies, wrote in The Jakarta Post daily that Yudhoyono did not owe his coalition partners anything.

   'The lesson for him is that he can count on the professionals to help him run the country,' Hadi said. 'With the mandate he has received, he should now exert strong leadership.'