SBY: I will leave office in 2014

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono                                                                                                                 JP

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asserted on Wednesday he had no intention to extend his tenure and would leave office in 2014.

Speaking at the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), Yudhoyono said holding on power for too long was prone to corruption.

“I underline that I will consistently end my term of office in 2014,” he said as quoted by kompas.com.

He was responding to a controversy sparked by his Democratic Party politician Ruhut Sitompul, who earlier in the day proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow Yudhoyono to cling on power for another five years.

Yudhoyono said such an amendment would violate the country’s political moral and ethics.

“We uphold democracy and presidential system of government because everything is not in the hands of the president. Is it proper to change the hard-won constitutional amendment on limitation of presidential term?” he said.
 
He deemed the discourse on the constitutional amendment as a result of creative way of thinking of the nation and not his own initiative.

"We amended the Constitution when I chaired the Indonesian Military faction at the MPR. I genuinely pushed for limitation of presidential term of office to only two five-year periods,” he said.