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Have you really changed, Mr. President?
After a prolonged period 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 to the case, by delivering such vague statement raises an even bigger question mark for Indonesians: Is this really the man who once astonished Indonesian people with his industrious efforts to fight graft? Public concern is very much understandable: For a president whose efforts in eradicating corruption in Indonesia earned him worldwide recognition and a landslide victory during the last presidential election, so far his response to the rift between the police and the KPK has fallen very short of expectations
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fter a prolonged period 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 to the case, by delivering such vague statement raises an even bigger question mark for Indonesians: Is this really the man who once astonished Indonesian people with his industrious efforts to fight graft?
Public concern is very much understandable: For a president whose efforts in eradicating corruption in Indonesia earned him worldwide recognition and a landslide victory during the last presidential election, so far his response to the rift between the police and the KPK has fallen very short of expectations. His vague statements do not feel like they have sufficiently abated our apprehension.
Besides, before the statement itself, his previous silence about the KPK case raised disputes regarding his commitment to 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 recording.
The election a few months ago was my first election experience and I wholeheartedly supported SBY, but so far his ambiguous stance toward this case has let me down. His statement was no sign of a sturdy president who once impressed me by his valiant act to throw his own son's father-in-law in prison. Now, his indecisiveness seems likely to disappoint the citizens that have placed much hope on his shoulders.
If Yudhoyono really wants to fulfill his past promise of pushing for bureaucratic reform in Indonesia, there is no better target than the National Police and the Attorney General's 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 the National Police and the AGO is already bad among Indonesians - so bad that I recall that in one of the classes I attended, my lecturer even laughed off the feasibility of the government's plan to reform the severely dilapidated bureaucracy of the National Police and the AGO.
"They are just too bad and that reformation thing is just a waste of the government's state budget; they should conduct a revolution *of the police and the AGO* not a 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 concerns and implemented his actions toward those ramshackle institutions a long time ago. And after this case, people's confidence in 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 action against those institutions.
But I soon realized that instead of being recognized as a frontline general who leads his army to confront enemies at the vanguard, Yu-dhoyono is renowned as a thinking general; a brilliant strategist who excels in planning strategies that ensure victory.
Because of his recent indecisiveness, I am starting to wonder if his brilliant strategy successfully deceived me into voting for him. Was Yudhoyono really the person who threw Aulia Pohan in jail? Or was it actually the KPK that warrants the credit?
Perhaps Yudhoyono did nothing and just let him go to jail as part of his strategy because he knew that freeing him at that time would surely diminish his popularity and damage his chance of being re-elected.
It doesn't make sense to me because if throwing his own father-in-law to jail was so easy, why can't he do the same thing to those high-ranking police officers whose involvement in the plot to defame two KPK deputies seems to 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, while his reaction continues to see the KPK continually undermined.
Mr. President, puzzling statement like the one you made a few days ago are not what is needed to regain the trust of the Indonesian public. Concrete and decisive action is needed to help the KPK and punish the 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 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.
The writer is a student at the University of Indonesia's School of Economics.
