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new political party, the Union of Independent People (SRI), has come to the fore in Indonesia’s political stage and is bidding to contest the 2014 general elections.

Having registered the party with the Law and Human Rights Ministry, the party also hopes to nominate Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who is currently the managing director at the World Bank, as presidential candidate.

Many welcome the challenge offered by the new party, which will face a long road ahead. The current barrier is that SRI has not been verified and hence recognized as a party yet. It is impossible for it to propose its own presidential candidate if it fails to pass the verification process and establish branches in at least 30 of the country’s 33 provinces before the Aug. 22 deadline as required by the election law.

Apparently, politicians seem to be playing down Sri Mulyani’s chance in 2014. Agung Laksono, the coordinating minister for people’s welfare and a member of the Golkar Party, said SRI was not something to worry Golkar. Max Sopacua, a senior lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party, says Sri Mulyani would find it difficult to mount a successful challenge for the presidency because she is a comparative unknown, particularly at the rural level.

Politicians’ responses to Sri Mulyani’s presidential bid suggest growing and strong political oligarchy among our politicians. Their seemingly open heart and mind to Sri Mulyani’s chances in the 2014 elections are nothing more than political courtesy and lip service. The post-reform political landscape shows how political openness and democracy are getting polluted by and sabotaged by the political oligarchy.

Political dynasties come to the fore even stronger; implying a blurred portrait of the country’s political institutions. Puan Maharani being prepared to be the next Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s chairperson or Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono taking the party’s secretary-general post, for whatever reason, simply perpetuate a political system that places family factor over cadres’ integrity. This tendency leads to transactional politics where political decisions and deals are taken only by the party’s elites.

The “Sri Mulyani factor” in this presidential candidate is indispensable to break the vicious circle of political dynasties that have been proliferating among mainstream political parties. Despite the absence of a political background, Sri Mulyani has a track record of being a key figure initiating and executing Indonesia’s most successful bureaucracy reform.

The public had previously lent credence to Anas Urbaningrum to stand up against big political dynasties in the Democratic Party. However, the party’s internal fiction and his alleged graft scandal disappointed the public and suggested that the ruling party has transformed into a paternalistic party which eventually got him in political and business circles of mafia.

Furthermore, Sri Mulyani’s planned nomination for president is really gaining momentum owing to the declining support for old faces to run in the 2014 elections. Politically speaking, she is deemed as having the smallest risk not only due to her distance from party’s elite circles but also his integrity of compounding concept and activism in her attempts to carry out bureaucratic reform.

She was an excellent person of reflection and action during her time as a finance minister. She demurred at being a leader in the ivory tower. People have been fed up with figures of the reform era talking so much that they have screwed up the transitional period including the struggle for people’s welfare. Similarly, they were also frustrated with Indonesian leaders falling on the same holes due to their poor social engineering capability.

Compared to other presidential candidates, say Golkar’s Aburizal Bakrie or Surya Paloh of the NasDem Party, Sri Mulyani has exceptional and promising competence seen from her fast fixing power or policy making and her firmness in defending any policies taken. People may look at her strong arguments facing questions from the House in the wake of the fallout from the Bank Century case.

It is very likely that the country’s political oligarchy unquestionably will come under attack as Sri Mulyani may add to volatile politicians or far-reaching turnovers of the party’s top leadership. She has a chance of being a black horse amid the mainstream party’s leadership rejuvenation, which in turn opens the door for runaway politicians moving to the SRI party.

Like it or not, this is Indonesia’s gloomy political face where the best talents are easily hijacked for political gain. Therefore, the SRI party is expected to shape a clear-cut system that prevents other party’s politicians from joining the party for survival only. Failure to do so would make an impression that the new party is a safe place for political survival and “asylum”.

While the country’s old political oligarchy still depends on old faces of inner circle elites, Indonesia’s modern political scene requires professional leaders heeding the reforms of the people’s mind-set, intellect and will. The mainstream parties will receive strong public support as they get rid of personality cults and push professional figures, such as Sri Mulyani, to run in the 2014 presidential election instead.

The writer, a graduate of the University of Canberra, is a lecturer at Andalas University, Padang.