SBY’s Third Term

Does SBY deserve for third term of presidential stint? Absolutely, he does not. Why? He has no breakthrough to develop Indonesia. Is SBY a bad president? Absolutely, he is not. To certain extent he is a good one. I believe he has integrity and passion to do good for the people. And in my opinion SBY does not pursue self interest from his presidency.

I criticize SBY the way Lebanese criticized UNIFIL, United Nation's peacekeeping troops in Lebanon. The critics of Lebanese societies against UNIFIL are that UNIFIL is perfectly function when there is no war. However, as conflicts appeared, UNIFIL is just bystanders. UNIFIL including Indonesian troops reportedly fled from a skirmish between Lebanese and Israeli forces.

Is it fair to compare SBY's inaction with UNIFIL's escape?

Let see the evil's backlash against KPK. Antasari got 18 years imprisonment as the trial had never truly proved him guilty. Surprisingly, the judges shrugged off the evidence that Nasrudin (the victim) and Sigit (allegedly murder's associate) taped Antasari prior to the killing of Nasrudin. I wonder why they needed to tape Antasari, the then KPK chief. Of course the laymen will ask what the record is for. Certainly some people had asked both of them to do this, but who are they? Why did the judges not ask further about this strange evidence? Two men taped the same person would have had strong intention such as conspiracy to topple the good-performance Antasari.

Moreover, the others KPK leaders, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah have also been accused of bribery without any direct evidence. Even both the Police Chief and Attorney General had lied before the lawmakers on evidence. What a messy rule of law!

What do SBY do about this blatant crime? Nothing, just like UNIFIL. He only said it was the legal area that he had no intention and rights to interfere. That is definitely wrong attitude. Do nothing means to let somebody take charge to do anything as he wants. Not intervention means to let corruptors orchestrated the KPK' demise. The true reason is our president does not want to take risk in his second term by not doing anything that may backlash his presidency. He wants to play safe. By doing this, SBY will function perfectly – just like UNIFIL – when Indonesia is a law-established country like western country where the law is enacted in a true manner.

In economy SBY until now has neither legacy that we can remember. He does nothing in terms of economic breakthrough. He does everything like business as usual when we need groundbreaking program. We cannot boast of our product selling all across the world. We hardly boast our juggernauts because they are still too little. We have no showcases of our prosperous economic zones to invite more foreign direct investment. In a nutshell, there is no achievement at all in economy.

These are 2 points Indonesia needs the most, namely: (i) rule of law which everything is predictable, where the good guys prevails, where the law is abided by all citizens (ii) economy to answer what kind of industry we should develop and where should the specific industry thrive. SBY has no extra courage to enact the law and has no strategy or implementation to make achievement in economy.

SBY has a historic chance to do better so we will remember him as national hero who had done much to us. I hope he would realize that legacy which means quality of leadership is more important rather than the second or the third term.