On October 20, 2004, Indonesia has her new leader. Mr. Yudhoyono was sworn as the new president having won the election held last September convincingly. As Horace more than two thousand years ago said, “Life is largely a matter of expectation”, it is reasonable for Indonesia to raise their new expectation of the new leader.

Already yesterday’s editorial page of the Jakarta Post, the sole English based newspaper in the country, wrote, “If ever the phrase ‘Indonesia deserves the leaders it gets’ holds true, this is the only time that it has happened to this nation.” The Post also wrote, “…we cannot help but feel a sense of jubilation and accomplishment with today's inauguration.”

Perhaps, out of an excessive thrill, the chief editor of the Post wrote, “Others before him [Yudhoyono] may have been just as popular, but they took the nation's highest office through different routes that raised questions about their legitimacy. Sukarno took office by acclamation of a handful of people who had paved the way for the nation's proclamation of independence in 1945.” Certainly the editor neglected the fact that even if there were an election at that time, Soekarno—a man with tremendous charisma and knowledge—would have swept the votes. And using the same logic, American people never, or hardly, question the legitimacy of their first leader, George Washington who was elected just the same way as Soekarno elected about 60 years ago.

And Kompas, the most influential paper in the country, wrote, “Namun pada segi lain, pemerintahan Presiden Yudhoyono juga lahir di tengah harapan rakyat yang sangat tinggi. Harapan rakyat tersebut merupakan produk akumulasi bertumpuknya kekecewaan dan kegundahan yang dirasakan semenjak berakhirnya pemerintahan Presiden Soeharto Mei 1998.” It essentially says that the Indonesian people put a high, very high, expectation on President Yudhoyono.

However, it’s one thing to be jubilant—or excessively joyful—and hopeful, it is quite another to be cautious and realistic. And there are many reasons for such an attitude. The first reason is the unknown factor about Mr. Yudhoyono. Notwithstanding the wide exposures of himself during the campaign, Mr. Yudhoyono is still rather a mystery. Many says that although Mr. Yudhoyono is a military general with dense military experience, his non-military experience and duty for the last six years have transformed him into “civilian” figure. But his core remains the same: military approach. This is not saying that the new president will rule with gun, but as a leader with a solid military background, a militaristic approach toward many issues will not likely be out of his choice. After all as Al Capone once said, “You can get much father with a kind word and a gun, than you can with a kind word alone.” Will he put a “gun” under his table while nicely persuading others to achieve his goal?

Another reason to be cautious and rational is the ability of Mr. Yudhoyono to govern as president. Being a presidential hopeful—during the election campaign—and a real president are often two completely different things. One can be presidential or look presidential, but she or he could be far from presidential once elected in the office. There some indications for this early pessimistic view. The main indication is the realities of politics behind Mr. Yudhoyono’s election. His party, the Democrat Party, barely managed to obtain less than 10% of the votes in the parliament election this year. For president Yudhoyono to be effective, he still has to work with House of Representatives, which is far from his control, to get his policies passed. The House is virtually controlled by Golkar and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), two parties which formed a coalition in supporting Mrs. Megawati who eventually lost to Mr. Yudhoyono. Given Megawati’s camp reaction to Mr. Yudhoyono’s win, the new president will likely face a hostile opposition from Golkar and PDIP in the House which could slow down the new government's programs.

The eight percent of the votes that Mr. Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party managed to get in the parliament election vis a vis the 60% of popular votes he obtained in the presidential election has created some uncertainties of the effectiveness of his presidency. Not only will it create problem as described above, but also it makes us wonder as what Mr. Yudhoyono will think about his presidency. Put it this way, will Mr. Yudhoyono think that his overwhelming victory, gaining about 60% of the votes, is because of other parties’ contributions or because of voters’ confidence in him to lead the country? If he thinks that his presidency is because of the former, he will lead with extra cautious, not willing to risk the parties’ supports even though at the cost of making his leadership ineffective. If he thinks that his presidency is because of the latter, he will lead with confidence and always put the public’s interest first. However, if such approach is not at the interest of the parties which support him, he will face a strong opposition in the House, not only from the two major parties, Golkar and PDIP, but also from his supporting parties.

Will Mr. Yudhoyono’s primary commitment be for the public or for the parties which back him? This phenomenon has already been apparent in the way the new president selected his Cabinet members and the individuals he selected to be in his Cabinet.

By September 25, Mr. Yudhoyono has essentially won the election. However, it took him more than three weeks to select his Cabinet members and only to come up with “A United Cabinet.” The name itself sums up everything about his Cabinet—and possibly Mr. Yudhoyono’s leadership for the next five years. No matter how the new president spins the formation of his Cabinet, the term “United” cannot be accepted confidently as “United to work”. Rather, the term reflects the political reality behind the formation of the Cabinet in which the nation’s interest comes after that of parties or groups which support him in the presidential election. Certainly, Mr. Yudhoyono will not dare to name it as “Professional Cabinet” or “Committed Cabinet”. Two examples will be sufficient to prove this point.

During the election campaign, the president often talked about education. He wanted to develop the country’s education system. He was rightly so. Education is one of the nation’s most critical problems that needs to be resolved immediately and seriously. But, how? The problem with the election campaign is the candidates often promised “I have a plan”, almost for everything, but never really described what the plan is all about and how she or he execute it. Mrs. Megawati also often talked about the plan in improving the national education system. But her solution was too short-sighted, let’s put more teachers to schools and increase their salaries. Mr. Yudhoyono’s plan was actually more of the same. Ironically, both candidates put education as one of their campaign messages.

As  Mr. Yudhoyono has won the election, we can examine whether he is consistent with his campaign messages, especially on education. The problem with the nation’s education system is too long and complex to be detailed here. Suffice to state that it needs a major reform. Without a major reform, the nation’s education system will not be capable of creating Indonesians—on average—who can meet the challenges of 21^st century.  Putting more teachers to schools and provide them with higher salaries are only a minor part of the reform. The reform should encompass various aspects from non-formal education, informal education, curriculum, school’s infrastructures, the development of competitive universities, and the development and advancement of basic and applied research. The mission is to prepare the nation so that it can compete in the 21^st century. So far, the only reasonable choice is to create a knowledge-based society, a society which not only consumes and appreciates knowledge passionately, but also which has the ability to create it. As Paul Romer argues, it is a knowledge user and producer society.

During the formation of his Cabinet, he invited at least three public universities’ presidents to consult about the development of education in the country. Fine. But doesn’t he have enough understanding about this issue before? After all, any reasonable intelligent people that pay enough attention to the nation’s development will come up with the above conclusion that the nation’s education system needs a major reform. Like many others, I have anticipated that Mr. Yudhoyono will pay attention to this issue seriously and will appoint someone who has the authority, vision, energy and the commitment to undertake this noble and most important task. I was thinking that the light of hope might have been only a few meters away. And what is Mr. Yudhoyono answer to those challenges? Let’s appoint Mr. Bambang Sudibyo. Suddenly, the light becomes dim. It will probably be dark soon. It looks like a dead zone. The nation’s education will likely stay its course: status quo.

Mr. Sudibyo is not the right person on the position. While he was once a director of graduate management program at the Gajah Mada University, his background and past concerns are far from being a strong indication that he will be capable of performing a major reform in the national education system. With a doctorate degree in business and accounting which he earned about 20 years ago, and a former minister of finance for about 2 years, Mr. Sudibyo's main works are mainly in economics and finance, and our education is far from economic issues. It goes to the fundamental issue: how to create a knowledge-based society. It requires a thorough and thoughtful plan, a strong commitment and dedication, and a fresh approach and strong mentality to manage the ill-managed education department.

This appointment only shows a lack of Mr. Yudhoyono’s understanding about the urgency and the critical mission of building a strong national education system which is the foundation of a competitive nation. His solution to the nation’s most critical problem, at least for now is to appoint his friend, Mr. Sudibyo, for the job. This is to some extend similar, although not completely the same in nature, to the bizarre appointment of Mr. AS Hikam, who holds PhD in political science, as the minister of research and technology by the former President Abdurrahman Wahid in 1999.

Another reason to be skeptic about Mr. Yudhoyono’s government is his appointment of Aburizal Bakrie as the coordinating minister of economics and finance. Mr. Bakrie, who was once a presidential candidate in the Golkar Party’s primary, is a controversial figure for the job. He is one of the owners of Bakrie and Brothers, Co, one of the most troubled companies in the late 90s when the crisis hit the country. In 1999, the domestic public bank (BDN) wrote off abut 1.4 trillion rupiah of his company debt. By any reasonable argument, Mr. Bakrie is incompetent and unethical to fill such a prestigious and crucially important job. This is like President Bush in the U.S. to appoint Kenneth Lay, the former Enron founder and CEO, to be the secretary of treasury. Enron went bankrupt in 2001. Still in that sense, this is like President Bush appoints Bernard Ebbers, the former CEO of WorldCom, to head the treasury department. The telecommunications giant is alleged committing accounting frauds from 2000 to 2003. Prior to the financial crisis in 1997, many Indonesian companies, including Bakrie and Brothers, Co. committed accounting frauds.

The nation’s long-term security issue

About 60% of the voters decided to elect Mr. Yudhoyono as president. That’s what we know. What we don’t really know is why they voted for him. However, at the very least—until any organization that might have done exit polls announces its findings, we can reasonably assume that the voters have not been satisfied with Megawati’s leadership, and they expect Susilo to deliver major improvements in some important aspects especially on security.

This is, in fact, not a terribly baseless assumption. If we rely on the information that the voters already provided last year in a survey conducted by Charney Research of New York and AC Nielsen Indonesia and commissioned by The Asia Foundation, about 53 percent of the voters preferred a strong leader like former authoritarian Soeharto, even if rights and freedom were reduced. Little doubt that Soeharto, while he led with muscle, he also provided a relatively better security. Six years after he stepped down, security has been ups and downs, but more with downs. If one can draw any conclusion, security is perhaps one of the reasons the voters decided to elect Susilo as the country’s leader for the next five years.

How the new president will improve the security. Most of the nation’s fundamental problems are long-term problems, including the security. There is no quick and instant solution to all these problems. They demand a thorough and right approach from the very beginning. Many say that security is because of the poverty and the high unemployment rates. But the biggest security threat is not street crimes which are often induced by economic hardship. It is the organized crimes supported by powerful individuals as well as the ideolog radicals. The latter will continue to be a major problem as long as the nation’s ideology is still open to any interpretation and open to a radical change.

Sooner or later this issue must be resolved once and for all. About 20 years ago, the former President Soeharto realized the significant important of this issue when he pushed the national consensus of making Pancasila as the only national ideology, including the ideology of any political parties and mass organizations.

In a diverse, growing and relatively open society such as Indonesia, the concern has always been: what is the extreme view point and action that could be tolerated? In the era where global issues such as terrorism can suddenly become a local or national issue and where a conflict in one part of the world can become our local or national concern, there is a need for a fine balanced between the freedom of expression and the unity of the nation. To tackle this issue, the president must display a strong and resolute leadership. Mr. Yudhoyono has yet to show how far he can consolidate the power embodied in his presidency to resolve this issue. He has yet to overcome the realities of politics behind his election. The political parties that support him come from a very diverse background, from those which support national unity to those which are aspiring to establish Indonesian society which is based on laws of a particular religion.

A high expectation can always be problem. The good thing is the Indonesian people can always build their new expectation in every five year.  At least for now the country has a mechanism in place to check and evaluate the performance of their leader and make their judgment accordingly.