Yudhoyono and Sukarno's leadership

Fachry Ali ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 10/23/2009 12:10 PM  |  Opinion

There are several reasons why Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is compared with Indonesia's first president Sukarno: their similarities and differences. Unlike others, the leaderships of Yudhoyono and Sukarno are characterized by their popularity. In his era, the popularity of Sukarno was unrivaled - as stated by the late Prof. Alibasyah Amin - a 1940s Acehnese father who named his son Sukarno.

Today, this kind of popularity also applies to Yudhoyono. While in the second round of the 2004 presidential election he won with more than 60 percent of votes, in 2009, the election did not even go to a second round. Yudhoyono's popularity is therefore quite significant, he defeated Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of Sukarno, in the 2004 and 2009 elections. Yudhoyono's popularity is also penetrative. In Aceh, he reaped more than 90 percent of support in the year's presidential election.

However, both of them also have differences. Sukarno's popularity was forged within seething national movements and the revolutions of the 1930s and 1940s. These events produced a transition situation where traditional elements were used to adjust to a nascent modern world. Consequently, Sukarno became a charismatic leader whose existence was not contested. Indeed Sukarno was never popularly elected.

Yudhoyono's leadership has occurred in a post-charismatic leadership age. Thirty years of material and capital development launched by Soeharto's regime radically uprooted the roots of traditional leadership. The reformasi regime that emerged in mid-1998, introduced a real democratic system. Today, leaders are contested publicly and Yudhoyono is Indonesia's first directly-elected president.

Using this comparison, where should a discussion on the future of Indonesia be placed?

Sukarno ruled in a distinctly different political and social context. The transitional nature of cultural politics brought about, not only ideology as the basic means to respond to new challenges, but the paradigm was also formed through an ideological lens. International and domestic relationships were thereby perceived more through the calculation of ideological gains rather than material ones. At that time it was a risk of losing sources of capital from Western countries. The fall of Sukarno was caused by an asymmetric situation: "the inflation of ideological passion" coupled with "the deflation of material capital".

The emergence of Yudhoyono in 2004 was faced with a similar symmetry, "the deflation" of both ideology and material capital. While the "the deflation of ideology" was less problematic, as it allowed for flexibility of Indonesia's international relations, "the deflation of material capital" was surely a big problem. Was it not this "deflation" that caused the fall of Sukarno in the mid-1960s and Soeharto's in the late 1990s?

During their rule, thanks to the absence of democracy, Sukarno and Soeharto could easily silence democracy using authoritarian methods.

Yudhoyono's authority, however, has been strictly limited by democracy. In Asia, only Japan and India have had the problems that have been faced by Indonesia under Yudhoyono, namely achieving economic growth within a democratic political system.

Considering this, two questions come to the fore: What is the destiny of Indonesia's future and what exactly is the character of Yudhoyono's leadership?

First, during the period of 2004-2009, under Yudhoyono, Indonesia achieved democratic political stability and a stable national economy. It was then included as a member of the G20, a world-class elite group of nations responsible for saving the global economy.

Second, the symmetric situation of creating surpluses in material capital, while maintaining a democratic political system produced a leadership typical of Yudhoyono: Exerting his technocratic approaches in the field of economy and advancing persuasive methods in political policies.

Sukarno managed to conserve his popularity by launching a continued revolution. Yudhoyono, on the other hand, lives in a different era and faces different challenges. He maintains his popularity by combining technocratic and persuasive leadership simultaneously. Such leadership perhaps could be used as model for the future generation.

The writer is the director of The Institute for the Study and Advancement of Business Ethics (Lspeu Indonesia).

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