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Indonesian President Retains Popularity
After Turbulent First Year
By Nancy-Amelia Collins
Jakarta, 19 October 2005
Indonesia's first directly elected president remains popular
and has kept the country relatively stable during a turbulent
first year in office that included last December's tsunami,
soaring world oil prices, an outbreak of the bird flu, and
another terrorist attack on Bali.
Retired army general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, became Indonesia's
first directly elected president after promising to revive
the country's flagging economy, deal with rampant corruption
and bring stability to the sprawling archipelago of 220
million people.
But just two months after he took office, the December 26
earthquake hit, precipitating a tsunami that killed more
than 230,000 people in a dozen Indian Ocean countries. More
than 160,000 of those victims were in Indonesia's northern
province of Aceh.
Showing a hands-on style of governing that has made him
popular, Mr. Yudhoyono was on the ground in Aceh inspecting
the devastation shortly after it occurred.
A presidential spokesman, Dino Djalal, says Mr. Yudhoyono's
humble beginnings have contributed to his populist instincts.
"He did not belong to a wealthy family," he said.
"He always talks about this. He came from a poor family.
And his response when he deals with [a] crisis was to deal
with it with a populist instinct which relates to his background.
His brand of populism, I think, is quite new in Indonesian
politics."
Mr. Yudhoyono has also earned praise for helping reach a
peace treaty between his government and separatist rebels
in Aceh, which led in August to the end of a decades-long
insurgency.
And he managed to gain reluctant public agreement for a
doubling of subsidized fuel prices, a move that in the 1990s
led to the ouster of long-time dictator President Suharto.
But one reputable polling organization reported that Mr.
Yudhoyono's approval rating dropped after the price hike.
A poll by the Indonesian Institute Survey shows his popularity
fell below 60 percent for the first time since taking office.
A member of the opposition Democratic Party of Struggle,
Emir Muis, says the government's economic initiatives have
not helped the majority of the people.
"The standard of living of the people is getting worse,
because there is no economic activity in the grass roots,"
he said. "I can see that sometimes the idea of the
government is okay, but they cannot bring it down to the
grass roots."
The government is struggling with a polio outbreak, and
another of bird flu that has killed three people. Health
experts worry the bird flu virus, which has killed 60 people
in of Southeast Asia since 2003, could cause a world-wide
outbreak.
Mr. Yudhoyono has also had to deal with a second terrorist
attack on the holiday island of Bali on October 1, which
claimed 20 lives.
The al-Qaida linked regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah
has been blamed for that attack, along with a string of
other bombings including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed
202 people.
In the wake of the latest Bali bombing, Mr. Yudhoyono vowed
to strengthen existing anti-terrorism laws.
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