Matthew Moore – As is usually the case with those watching him for the first time, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono left few people unimpressed. On just the third trip ever by an Indonesian president to Australia, Yudhoyono pushed every button he could to reassure his neighbours he knows how they think and understands their concerns.
He did his best to allay fears many Australians have of a country their Government warns is so dangerous it's best avoided. "I am convinced we can take this friendship between Indonesia and Australia far," he said. "Very far," he added, as he urged his audience to "imagine the vast area of democratic peace and co-operation that will be created between the largest archipelago on the equator and the great continent Down Under".
Awarding medals of honour to the Australian Defence personnel who died in the Nias Island helicopter crash was more evidence of his deft political touch, especially when contrasted with his predecessor, Megawati Soekarnoputri, who chose not to attend a ceremony in Bali honouring those who died in the 2002 bombings.
Without saying how, Yudhoyono even suggested he might attend to the problems of Schapelle Corby, who is waiting in a Bali jail while prosecutors decide if they want her executed if she is found guilty of smuggling marijuana: "I will watch closely to make sure that justice is there, because it is important that justice is upheld..." To businessmen he spruiked "a new Indonesia, a new president, a new parliament, exciting new bilateral relations between Indonesia and Australia and a full set of new business opportunities for you".
Listening to all this from a leader who looks and sounds so plausible, Australians would be forgiven for thinking Indonesia is well on the road to a bright and prosperous future. But in Indonesia and among those who watch the place closely, Yudhoyono's words don't resonate so convincingly. In a country with big problems, many are impatient for the reforms Yudhoyono promised a year ago, in the first days of the election process, but which seem as far away as ever.
A University of Indonesia sociologist, Dr Imam Prasodjo, curtly summarised the views many academics, activists and investors have of Yudhoyono's presidency, now just a week shy of the six-month mark. "He's too wimpy... I want him to be more aggressive," said Prasodjo.
Educated at Brown University in the US, Prasodjo is one of a group of energetic, reform-minded Indonesians who struggle to make the country a fairer place. As well as his university work, he runs an aid group helping victims of disasters like the religious clashes in Ambon and gets to see every day how incompetence and corruption grind down the country's poorest.
He supported Yudhoyono's election, backing him as the best candidate to root out corruption, rebuild the economy, education and health systems and appoint a more professional administration.
But he says while the promises sound fine, the changes have not even begun. "I don't feel like Bambang Yudhoyono is unwilling, he's just not brave enough. He's worried about his weak position in Parliament and does not want to take any risks. I am really discouraged... I want him to make structural, systematic changes... I want him to introduce a procurement system because the source of corruption is the budget."
A long-time Jakarta resident and a doctoral student at the Australian National University, Marcus Mietzner, agrees. "He's been good in policy formulation, on the rhetoric side and the symbolic side, but the weaknesses in implementation are obvious. Indonesia is not a radically different place now to what it was in Megawati's time," he said.
After less than six months in office, and with the calamity of the tsunami to deal with, it seems churlish to criticise the pace of reform. But Mietzner says the President's problem is not a lack of time. He points out it was Yudhoyono who promised a 100-day blitz of reform that even included the arrest of key Bali and Australian embassy bombing suspects Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top, both of whom remain at large. "I don't see the shock therapy he said he'd use. My prediction is it won't be much different in the next six months or the year after that."
Yudhoyono was elected on the back of his promises to rebuild the economy by attracting foreign investment and creating jobs. Reducing corruption and reforming a justice system where verdicts routinely go to the highest bidder were critical reforms. He promised to start that process by prosecuting a handful of big public figures widely regarded as corrupt, but few have gone before the courts.
In his first days in office, Yudhoyono visited the four agencies regarded as among the most corrupt: customs, tax, attorney-general's and police, and urged them to change their ways. There's anecdotal evidence these visits had some effect, but the deputy co-ordinator of the Indonesian Corruption Watch, Danang Widoyoko, said he can't yet say if the President is serious about his promised crackdown on graft. "We still have to wait for him to fulfil his promises, at least until the end of the year," he said.
In a corrupt country, there are few more notorious places than Aceh, where the long-running war with separatists has created a environment where corruption flourishes and only the brave or foolhardy dare complain.
Foreign governments and aid organisations that have together pledged billions of dollars are insisting on controls to make sure their money goes where they intend. But few experts believe that the more rigorous accounting systems or other measures to protect aid money in Aceh will be picked up in other parts of the country. Widoyoko says Aceh is "a different case" to the rest of the country. "It will have its own management and law enforcement because of the foreign money, and if there's a corruption case in Aceh, they will speed it up to bring it to the courts." There's no lack of knowledge in Indonesia about how to tackle corruption. The problem is the difficulty of dismantling a system where an army of public servants need their kickbacks to repay the large sums of money borrowed to secure their lucrative jobs.
A Jakarta-based Australian investment adviser, Philip Shah, says although the President has yet to move on these bureaucrats, his promises to do so are creating fears among them and problems for those who deal with them. "People are stressed, [and] the bureaucracy is divided and asking for more money now because they don't know if they will be out of a job tomorrow."
Shah welcomed Yudhoyono's trip to Australia as "all positive and moving in the right direction", but said a lot more was needed before investors would put their money where the World Bank says nine out of 10 businesses report bad experiences with law enforcement and corruption. "He's giving very good speeches, I just hope he has enough power and support to action them."
Shah and many in the foreign business community are uneasy at the lack of movement. "Much was promised in the first three months, but after six months nothing has happened." Despite such complaints, Yudhoyono is clearly a class above Indonesia's recent leaders. He's bright, works hard, has a plan for his country, and makes a real effort to explain it to his public. And although he's criticised as indecisive, he took one of the toughest decisions an Indonesian leader can make when he cut fuel subsidies and increased the price of petrol by 30 per cent promising the money would be put into social programs. When the protesters hit the streets, he didn't buckle.
A US-funded survey done in February showed Yudhoyono retains strong support, with 57 per cent of people satisfied with his performance, although that figure may have dropped following the fuel price increases. The survey, by the International Foundation of Election Systems, shows that as with previous polls where the same questions were asked, Indonesians remain most worried about the economy. Nearly three in four say they are unhappy with Yudhoyono's record in curbing prices and creating jobs.
The World Bank has also let him know that if he wants foreign investment, he should start acting and quickly solve several long-running disputes with foreign companies. "It's now been half a year since the new Government's [election]... this is now a pretty urgent and important matter to tackle," the bank's vice-president for private-sector investment, Michael Klein, told Dow Jones.
A senior fellow from Washington's Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Cornelius Luhulima, believes critics are asking too much at this stage and should give the President more leeway. He agrees Yudhoyono must reform the bureaucracy which the World Bank says has a "controlling and exploiting" mindset but great patience will be needed. "He will change the whole bureaucracy, but whether four years will be enough I don't know."