Why Sri Mulyani Could be the Next President

VOTE FOR VENDETTA. 2014 is payback time, during which this Iron Woman will set to bring Indonesia's bureaucratic reform to the next level and take her vengeance to those corrupt lawmakers and politicians.

Six years ago, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono certainly could remember what it felt like being treated unfairly by his supervisor when he, apart from his position as Coordinating Minister of Political and Security Affairs under Megawati Soekarnoputri, was actually neither invited nor involved by her in several cabinet meetings concerning various political and security matters.

But for Yudhoyono, it seems that every cloud has its own silver lining –so does Megawati’s harsh treatment to him which eventually led to his resignation from his ministerial post on March 11 2004.

This is because in the end, it’s Yudhoyono who had the last laugh. Megawati’s decision to expel Yudhoyono from the other cabinet members –as well as the cruel words from Taufik Kiemas (Megawati’s husband), who added fuel to a fire and accused Yudhoyono of exaggerating things and being ‘too childish’– backfired and contributed to her loss in the presidential election to Yudhoyono at the same year.

In fact, Megawati’s story of how a president made the most of her authority to bully her own subordinate had without doubt helped Yudhoyono to win sympathy from many Indonesians; eventually leading him to win the presidential election and trounce Megawati by a wide margin.

What Indonesia had in the past is somewhat identical to the situation at present, where now finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati suddenly turns out to be a media-darling figure and draws sympathies from many Indonesians following her heroic role as the sacrificed bishop to save her king from his inconvenient position in the political chessboard.

For Sri Mulyani, it is worth noting that there were several cases besides Yudhoyono’s story above, particularly women, when someone rose to prominence and eventually ended up on top level in politics because she was able to gain sympathy of the people.

In Pakistan, the father of the legendary Benazir Bhutto was unjustly ousted from power by his political foe through a military coup and was sentenced to death. This later sparked a deep-rooted indignation among the Pakistanis which helped the Pakistan People Party, of which Benazir Bhutto was the chairperson, to gain massive support from the people.

Benazir Bhutto, who once headed finance ministry like Sri Mulyani, finally reached the pinnacle of her politics career when she took oath as the first and the only woman ever to become a prime minister in Pakistan.

The preceding tale was also similar to Megawati Soekarnoputri whose tear-jerking past helped her a lot to be recognized in Indonesia politics and won the sympathy of the people. Her father Soekarno, a national hero who proclaimed Indonesia’s independence, was exiled and sullied when Soeharto took over and Soekarno’s descendents, including Megawati, had to endure 32 years of oppression and tribulation from Soeharto and his cronies.

Prior to her seemingly reluctant move to World Bank, actually Sri Mulyani has drawn many sympathies already for her role of being the shield to the president himself during the fallout of Bank Century bailout, protecting Yudhoyono from the scorching political bullets while at the same time her own boss apparently was more interested in washing his hands clean on the subject.

Besides, Sri Mulyani was, without doubt, the person who deserves the largest share of the credit for Indonesia’s striking economic performance during the last financial crisis which, ironically, was the backbone of Yudhoyono’s victory in the last presidential election.

And now instead of protecting Sri Mulyani from the business and political rascals who have been unsettled by the bureaucratic reform which she initiated, Yudhoyono decided to forgo her and bow to the given pressure.

Fortunately, those cruel treatments of Yudhoyono’s to his meritorious finance minister may be a blessing in disguise for Sri Mulyani herself as well as many Indonesians who have been longing for a fearless, intellectual figure who has the capability and guts to become a president and reform Indonesia from the very top of the bureaucracy itself.

Thanks to the enormous exposure from the press –as well as numerous analysis and insights from high-profile intellectuals in various media–, in addition to the growing sympathies to Sri Mulyani her departure has also opened the eyes of many Indonesians about how brilliant this person actually was and how much she has done to Indonesia’s economy during her tenure as finance minister.

As an old saying goes, you never know what you get until it’s gone. It’s like when Michael Jackson passed away and, because of massive coverage from various types of information media all over the world, all of a sudden all music fans worldwide realized the fact that his contribution to the music industry had actually been so immense.

The difference is that Sri Mulyani is still alive and when she finishes her four-year term as World Bank’s managing director in 2014 and comes back to Indonesia as she has promised, she could be one of Indonesia’s highest profiles for our election during that year.

For Sri Mulyani, the moment could not be better. She is only 47 at present, and if she really wants to bid for presidential post in 2014, she will be 51.

If one still considers her to be too green to be a president, she still has a lot of time behind her back. If Sri Mulyani only runs as a vice-president candidate in 2014 then runs again for president five years later, then she is still 56 at 2019. And bidding at the age of 56 will put her still even younger than Prabowo Subianto, who ran at the age of 57 during the last presidential election and in fact was still the youngest among his counterparts.

One problem that emerges is Sri Mulyani is a well-known technocrat, and it is still questionable whether she possesses such political motivation to be a president –or even as a vice-president.

But Sri Mulyani should reflect to Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first woman president, who was said to be initially hesitant to run for presidential post because she actually never possessed such ambition. In the end, due to the unprecedented surge on her popularity and pressure from her own supporters, she ultimately changed her mind and the rest that happened in Chile afterwards was history.

There is no doubt that Sri Mulyani’s recent popularity among Indonesians will definitely make political parties slaughtering each other to get her signature four years from now. And if at that time she is equipped with a decent political wheel, the spines of Indonesia’s corrupt businessmen and politicians will surely shiver like they never before.

The bureaucratic reform which Sri Mulyani spearheaded may suffer a temporary setback following her exodus to United States. But when she comes back here to run for a more strategic role to bring a broader scale of bureaucratic reform, she has more than enough ammunition already to get her revenge towards those corrupted evils who have colluded to kick her out from the country that she loves the most.

This article was published in Asia News Network on Tuesday, June 2 2010

Time for the Young to Take Over

THE YEAR OF THE PRODIGY. Last year of 2009 saw prolific young men rising to the next level and taking over the lead from the older generations. (From top left, clockwise) Anies Baswedan, Gumilar Somantri, Firmanzah, Barack Obama, Jonathan Favreau, and Josep Guardiola.

Persons who are in charge of top-level management positions are usually on the age of 50s or 60s. But few months ago my university friends and I were covered in disbelief as we found out that our newly-elected dean, impressively, did not follow suit. Still at the age of only 33, Pak Firmanzah rose against the seemingly impossible odds to beat other more experienced candidates to become the youngest-ever dean in the history of University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Economics (FEUI).

Because of his young age, at first many consider him as green and lacking on experience to lead the faculty –but so far he has proven the critics wrong. It has only been eight months since Pak Fiz –that’s how we usually call him– took charge as our new dean, but his hard-working attitude and attentive leadership style have made him a popular figure among us FEUI students.

My respected dean is not alone in this case. Recently such occurrence can no longer be considered as unlikely; up to this day we have seen a significant increase in number of younger people who have been given huge responsibility to hold an important role in high level –and so far they have proven to us that they can perform the given task as well as the older and more experienced generation does.

Before Firmanzah, In Indonesia the predecessor includes the person to whom he has to report now, Gumilar Rusliwa Soemantri, who became University of Indonesia’s rector at the age of only 44. UI sees a significant increase of its THES QS universities rank from 287^th to 201^st this year among 4000 universities which were evaluated, thanks to various internal reforms in UI that were encouraged by Gumilar himself.

Even more impressive is the achievement of Anies Baswedan, the rector of Paramadina University whose intellect earned him a place as one of the members of the so-called “Team 8”. Anies Baswedan was merely 38 years old when he was appointed as the head of the University and despite his relatively young age today he is highly regarded as one of the brightest political analysts in Indonesia.

Young people are rising and we can see that this phenomenon does happen in almost every sector in the world. In sports, this year many football pundits heaped praises on Josep Guardiola’s managerial ability as he rose to become the youngest UEFA Champions League winning manager ever. Only in his first season at the club, Guardiola, the former Spanish international who just turned 38 this year, successfully lead his star-studded FC Barcelona team to win the competition, having beaten the veteran 67-year old Sir Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United team in the final.

In world politics, perhaps this year will be best remembered because of the historic victory of Barack Obama, who, despite the robust challenge by far older and more experienced persons like John McCain and Hillary Clinton during the election, has been able to win the US presidential election and become the fifth-youngest man in the US history to occupy the oval office.

Barack Obama seems to read the wind as he also trusted several of his key posts to be given to the younger colleague of his. More experienced economist like the 66-year-old Joseph Stiglitz was left out in the cold and Obama decided to choose younger faces like 48-year-old Timothy Geithner as his Treasury Secretary or 40-year-old Peter Orzag as his Director of the Office of Management and Budget instead. Obama also appointed a young writing-prodigy named Jonathan Favreau, 28, as his Director of Speechwriting –and a brilliant speech deliverer and best-seller book author like Barack Obama definitely doesn’t trust ordinary man in doing that task, which allows the person to have a massive authority in controlling his words.

But unfortunately we did not have much choice during the last presidential election. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono certainly represented the older generation when he took oath as our president in the age of 60, and the same can also be said to his vice-president Boediono who was 67. Other candidates are very much the same and the youngest among them all is vice-president candidate Prabowo Subianto who, despite all of his youthful spirit and stirring speeches which he brought to us, was actually 57 and surely he will be a bit long in the tooth if he is to represent younger generation in the 2014 election.

Indonesia is lagging behind on the regeneration and this becomes a millstone around our neck today; you can just look to the last presidential election’s candidates or SBY’s ministerial cabinet formation and you will realize that both are still dominated by stale and old-timer politicians. We may have just finished our presidential election this year, but as we usher to the year of 2010 and are gearing up to the next 2014 election we might well start considering about rejuvenation.

Yes, the bitter fact is that Indonesia still highly depends to the older generation up to present –public are fed up staring at the same old faces and are ravenous for having younger generations to replace them.

In this year of 2009, people like Firmanzah, Gumilar Rusliwa Soemantri, Anies Baswedan, Barack Obama, and Josep Guardiola have proven to us that young people are up against the challenge. In the next year of 2010, will there be more number of young people who emerge at various top levels just like last year? Or will this be the year of revelation for someone waiting in the wings to bring about the rejuvenation in Indonesia’s 2014 election?

This article was part of the limited edition copy of The Jakarta Post special report; Review 2009 and Outlook 2010

Have You Changed, Mr. President?

IN A QUANDARY. As the supreme commander, pressure is piling on Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's shoulder to take more decisive act towards the perpetrators of the defamation plot of KPK executives.

After a prolonged time of silence, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has finally announced his ruling on the rift between the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the National Police; yet his approach on the case by pronouncing such vague statement raises an even bigger question mark for Indonesians: is this really the man who once astonished Indonesian people because of his industrious efforts in fighting graft?

Indonesians’ concern is very much understandable: for a president whose efforts in eradicating corruption in Indonesia had earned him a worldwide recognition and a landslide victory during the last presidential election, so far his response to the rift between the Police and KPK fell very short from the expectations. And that vague statement of his also doesn’t feel like the solution to our apprehension.

Besides, before the statement itself, his previous silence about this KPK case has raised disputes already regarding his consistency in fighting corruption–many even pointed out the possibility of his involvement in the plot to undermine the once larger-than-life commission as his name was repeatedly mentioned on the wiretapping tape.

The election few months ago was my first election experience and in fact I was one of his supporters who wholeheartedly marked his face in the ballot during the last presidential election, but so far his undecided stance towards this case has let me down. I see his previous statement as no sign of a sturdy president who once impressed me by his valiant act to throw his own son’s father-in-law to incarceration; it seems more like a statement that comes from an irresolute general whose indecisiveness seems likely to disappoint his citizens who have put many hopes in his shoulder.

If Yudhoyono really wants to fulfill his past promise of pushing a bureaucratic reform in Indonesia, there is no better target to be set as his priority than the National Police and the Attorney General Office (AGO) –and after all their disgraces have been made public because of this case; this seems to be the perfect moment. In fact, the reputation of Indonesian National Police and Attorney General Office have been very bad already among Indonesians –so bad that I recall that in one of the classes which I attended, my lecturer even laughed off the feasibility of the government’s plan to reform the severely dilapidated bureaucracy of Indonesian National Police and the AGO.

“They are just too bad and that reformation thing is just a waste of the government state budget; they should do revolution (to the police and AGO) and not reformation,” she said. “Do you know the difference between revolution and reformation? Revolution means dissolving the whole institution and building a brand new one afterwards.”

Yudhoyono should have tackled such concern and implemented his actions toward those ramshackle institutions long time ago. And after this case occurs and people’s confidence towards the National Police and the AGO has plunged to its lowest level, many people –including my lecturer– may be wondering: why he has still not taken any serious act yet to those institutions?

But I soon realize that instead of being recognized as a frontline general who leads his army to confront enemies at the vanguard, Yudhoyono is renowned as a thinker general; a brilliant strategist who is expert in planning a strategy so his army can come out victorious in the end.

Because of his recent indecisiveness, I am starting to wonder if his brilliant strategy has successfully deceived me to give my vote to him. Was Yudhoyono really the person who threw Aulia Pohan to jail? Or actually it was KPK who did it and thus should deserve the credit; while Yudhoyono actually did nothing and just let him jailed as part of his strategy because he knew that freeing him at that time would surely diminish his popularity among us and hurt his chance of winning the re-election?

It doesn’t make sense to me because if throwing his own son's father-in-law to jail would be so easy like that, then why can’t he do the same thing to those high-rank police officers whose involvement in the plot to defame two KPK deputies proved to be obvious?

Only Yudhoyono himself knows the answer. It has been merely a month since he was inaugurated as our president, but his once flawless legacy of combating corruption in Indonesia is now in doubt already as he still stands unmoving albeit the KPK is being continually undermined.

Mr. President, puzzling statement like the one you said few days ago is not the thing needed to regain the trust of Indonesians; what is more necessary is your concrete and decisive action in helping the KPK and giving punishment to the case’s culprits. By doing so, you will return to the track that will lead you to an Indonesian president whose legacy of fighting corruption will be remembered in many years from now. And by doing so you can also prove to us that you are still the same Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono whose face on the ballot we marked wholeheartedly during the last presidential election.

This article was published in The Jakarta Post on Thursday, December 3 2009

Talk Less, Do More is the Principle of Boedionomics

Mr. Fix-It. Don't get fooled by his soft-spoken words; this guy hides his light under a bushel. Accomplish first, talk later on–here in economics we speak with data, fellas.

(photo by Sinartus Sosrodjojo)

My friend Miranti sat nervously right beside me when we were waiting for the vice-president elect Boediono to give his lecture to around 300 students, lecturers, and other economics academicians inside the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Economics auditorium last month on September 14.

“I think he’s definitely the right man for the job. You know, both of my parents are big fans of him and during the presidential election my father continuously told me about how humble he is and how his overwhelming economics knowledge can bolster up Indonesia’s economy in the future,” she said.

At that time, the excitement of hearing his lecture live and seeing the vice-president elect in person was extremely high among us the economics students–so high that the auditorium seats had been fully booked three days before the lecture itself.

But in the end, Miranti’s massive excitement, as well as other 300 University of Indonesia academicians’, turned out to be a massive disappointment.

During his 2-hour lecture, Boediono presented us a tedious show as he resembled a professor who was more concerned to his textbook rather than the mood of his pupils. Despite the fact that the person who was giving the lecture up front was actually a vice-president elect, he fell short to the expectation and actually his lecture made no difference compared to few of my lecturers’ classes in FEUI to which I played truant frequently because of their monotonous teaching-style.

But as the lecture ended and many of my friends walked out with dissatisfaction and regretted their decision to attend his lecture, I still walked out with bliss since his performance on the stage was very much I had anticipated even before he took the floor: that Boediono is a dyed-on-the-wool technocrat who is renowned neither from his inspiring words nor how he performed on his speeches –it’s his accomplishment in bringing Indonesia’s economy to the highest level which raised him to prominence.

Notable for his terrific achievement of fixing Indonesia’s macroeconomic framework in the 2001 dream-team cabinet with Prof. Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Tjakti and nicknamed as ‘the man who get the job done’ while he is still working in the Indonesian treasury, as a technocrat Boediono learned that he was always judged by how he accomplish his job and not by his ability of gaining short recognition from his crowds with stirring words–where in politicians’ mind it is exactly the opposite.

“From a technocrat to a half-politician –it’s a completely unimaginable transformation for me,” he said at the beginning of his lecture.

In fact, technocrats were born to be working in the background and therefore they are accustomed in the habit of not talking too much. We can see that while today SBY’s cabinet is dominated with many politicians who fight over the ministerial seats for the interest of their own political party which they represent, Boediono’s fellow economics technocrats like Faisal Basri, Chatib Basri, and Raden Pardede are still waiting sedately in the wings to be appointed to the field of job where they are considered best.

One of the examples about the modesty of technocrats can also be seen when those technocrat friends of Boediono’s remain quiet even though deep inside their mind they are likely to laugh off SBY’s politicized decision to interview National Mandate Party’s (PAN) Hatta Radjasa as the coordinating minister for the economy –regardless by the fact that many people consider them to be more capable than Hatta as he possesses neither economic background nor any noteworthy experience previously in handling the economy.

In case of Boediono himself, I was very impressed when this 66-year old technocrat was always able to keep his head cool and still replying with his soft-speaking words when the likes of Prabowo Subianto and Wiranto violently criticized him in various issues during the vice-presidential debates in the previous election.

Let me tell you this Pak Prabowo and Pak Wiranto: In the next five years Indonesia’s future is yet to be defined; at this crucial moment we definitely don’t need smart alec people who are more competent in mouthing words but have no competence of implementing them into actions.

Pak Boed, despite your failure to live up to our expectations during the lecture, on behalf of the yellow jacket academicians I want to say thank you for your willingness to spare your busy time to lecture us and we all were grateful to experience such rare opportunity.

This is simply because we believe that actions speak louder than words: you may not be expert in doing speeches and inspiring people by your words, but getting tough tasks done and inspiring people by your hard-working attitude are the things that you are really excel at, aren’t they?

And yes we still support you wholeheartedly. As you are now officially elected as our vice-president and hold a more strategic role in the economy of Indonesia, we know that during the next five years of your term we can expect many great improvements in our economy to come from your economics aptitude–which we consider to be more important rather than just sweet niceties that were frequently uttered by your rivals during the last presidential election.

This article was published in The Jakarta Post on Thursday, October 22 2009

The Surge of Indonesia's Democracy

photo by Danu Primanto

A vast number of criticisms deluge this year's election, many of which are pointed especially to the dissapointing general election commission (KPU), the antagonist in the show that is thought to be responsible of all of these legislative election's clutters.

But there are always two sides of the same coin: apart from all of the negatives, many citizens in other side of the world praise Indonesia for its democracy and capability to arrange a peaceful direct election which becomes a role model for their countries.

The truth is; people who deem the election as a massive failure merely see one side of the coin, since the full-throttle democracy that has been established from Indonesia’s election is definitely something to be commended and recognized.

As we have successfully held our first direct parliamentary election and prepare for our second direct presidential election, it is so appealing to see how the dev elopment of our country has turned out to be. Indonesia was beaten hard by financial crisis in 1998 that toppled Soeharto from his 32-year reign, and it has been dealing with tough times since.

The transition of power did run smoothly, but Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, Indonesia’s president who presided over back then, bumped into massive quandaries –especially from the economy, which was particularly shown by yearly inflation that rose more than 100% and the tenfold depreciation of Rupiah to the level of Rp. 18,000 per US$ at that time.

A huge burden in economy is not the only thing we inherit from Soeharto’s reign. Besides, Indonesians came into a legacy of an oppressive government, a not-so-democratic culture stemmed from his hobby of repressing every political opposition which he considered as threat to his power.

Yes, perhaps many remember Indonesia because of the incredible transition of its economy; from a battered nation whose economy was mired in a prolonged suffering because of the 1998 financial crisis, to one of Asia’s booming economies that recorded 5.5% yearly economic growth over the past five years.

But the real success story of this country is more about how it impressively paved its own way towards a fully democratic nation and held an election that became a role model for every country in the world.

Indonesia’s democracy is a remarkable success story since it happens in a country whose voices have been confined for 32 years and a place where democracy was long overdue. In the past, Indonesians were not able to decide their own fate and political dissent was considered impossible, simply impracticable.

Participation in politics was very limited back in Soeharto’s dictatorship reign, and people were left with no options but supporting Soeharto and Golkar, a party that backed his power.

General election was considered a courtesy –and when it was eventually held, the outcome could be predicted even before the count had started as Soeharto and Golkar would surely come out victorious in the end of the election.

However, those days have long gone and now other countries can only envy us as the flourished democracy marks a success portrayal of Indonesia’s system reformation.

In fact, democracy is just a reverie for Burma citizens who have been suffering in prolonged tyrannical tribulations, people in Thailand are still daunted by the transition of power’s upheaval, and Malaysia politics is caught up in a racial separation –while its neighbors are still strained with such problems, Indonesia strides forward as the world’s example of democracy by arranging a peaceful election that involves more than 30 parties and 100 million people.

In a life of a still adolescent country like Indonesia, successfully carrying out democracy should be deemed as accomplishment instead of letdown. Yet despite all the flaws in our recent election, Indonesia has learned to put democracy into practice, and that’s an achievement we should be proud of for a nation that spends only 11 years since its regime reformation.

While most of our people denounce the previous legislative election’s imperfections, people in Burma and North Korea look us with jealous eyes, “Choosing representatives in government and a president directly? Be grateful Indonesians, we are not lucky enough to possess such rights.”

When you were young you did make mistakes, yet people would consider it as normal since it was a course of your development. Our election may have several imperfections, but as this young nation matures in the future and we look back in our past, we will learn that a success story can not be reached without failings beforehand.

For Indonesia, a nation-in-transition which is still seeking for ways toward a prosperous future, learning to practice democracy is a good start –and successfully arranging a peaceful and fully democratic election should be a keystone for better future to come.

In his book, US veep Joe Biden wrote; it required a lot less energy, intelligence, and competence to run against government than to try to make government work. He was not mistaken; here we have 38 parties and 100 million voters, and for KPU and the government, putting democracy into practice and making our general election system really works are hard tasks indeed. Therefore, it is easier to simply criticize it and unveil its flaws, right?

This article was published in The Jakarta Post on Thursday, May 14 2009 and Malaysia Today (outsourced from TJP) on Friday, May 15 2009

How to Make Economists Adhere on the Candidates

LIFE IS A DEED. Said Soetrisno Bachir, without knowing sort of campaign advertisements like that will rouse chuckle among economists. Perhaps that kind of campaign is good for enhancing popularity and building firm existence for the presidential election, but to say the advertisement is a good campaign advertisement is a different story. To tell the truth, we remember him not because of the quality of the commercial, but the quantity of its appearance in media. His popularity-purposed ads show no solution of Indonesia’s economy and social problems and his ability to help Indonesia overcome through it; which makes him as the candidate that economists do not want to choose. Today, the race for Indonesia’s presidential campaign may have not even started, yet we are inundated by numerous junk campaign advertisements from prospective candidates for the upcoming election.

Indonesians are living in the age of foolishness, where we are bamboozled in many things because of the people’s lack of education. In an election, –whether it is an election to decide a president, a state’s governor, or a party to decide Indonesian legislative assembly- we are in the habit of casting our vote and perforating our ballot based on the recognition. Someone wins the heart of the people by building such a sociable image and people give less precedence to the candidate’s educational background, intelligence, and his or her capability to solve major issues like economic and social problems.

That is the blemish in our democracy system; it is a very open system, so open that we give the fate of the country in the hand of more than 200 million people on the electoral roll who do not understand enough about how to solve Indonesia’s predicaments, and which candidate is capable for the matter. Gaining popularity by making sweet yet unrealistic words and abundant advertisements, therefore, is the best strategy for the candidates to win the election.

To win the heart of the economists is a different thing. Economists understand well about the advantage and disadvantage of government’s policy, and real trade-offs behind it. For the reason that economists can separate which things are rational and attainable and which things are not, they can not be flattered by sweet promises during the campaign. To fix the economy, economists have an indisputable view; they know who is best for the job.

Yet economists can be categorized as an expelled group and tend to be ignored in the election. Here in Indonesia, a large amount of people have no comprehension on the subject on hand and do not give a damn about the candidates’ view of economic issues. Indonesia is a country where only less than 5 percent of the population go to universities and underprivileged education still become a main apprehension, which makes economists, as well as other well-educated people who have the understanding on economic matters, expect to be largely overlooked.

Compared to Indonesia, in United States its citizens view economic issues on the presidential election as imperative; even Barack Obama has to recruit people like Paul Volcker (former Fed’s chairman), Joseph Stieglitz (author and Nobel Prize winner in economy), Indra Nooyi (CEO of Pepsi. Co), Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google), and Warren Buffet to be his economic advisors. Everyday, the candidates’ view of economic issues throughout the campaign becomes main topic to be reviewed in major media like Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. The debates between the candidates regarding their possible economic policies if they were elected held almost every month, televised, and attract attention nationwide.

The world’s economy is currently standing on the verge of global downturn, where we are daunted by economic perils that give challenge for every presidential candidate, whatever his or her country is. Thus, to put economists neatly behind a presidential runner, an understanding in economy is necessary, so that the candidate will have the capability to tackle current economic problems that the world is facing recently. In Indonesia, it is an even bigger challenge for the candidates to win the vote of the economists since the candidates have to be accustomed in dilapidation in our bureaucracy and corrupted government, as well as underlying economic and social problems that need to be surmounted.

Economists’ vote merely covers a small fraction of the population and not worth mentioning, but in fact, it may possibly be a decisive one; a vote that we need to up against the challenge of the world’s imminent recession and lead Indonesia to an improved future. And what kind of president economists like to have is not the one with abundant advertisements; it is the one with the perspicacity to comprehend the problems and the bravery to deliver the bold moves to liberate Indonesia’s economy from its times of turbulence.

This article was published in The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, October 7 2008