A former general and a successful entrepreneur once sounded like the perfect partnership to lead this vast archipelagic country given their diverse socioeconomic and sociocultural backgrounds.

But, the collaboration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla, individuals with distinctive professional backgrounds and characters, could turn out to be a gross waste unless the two maintain their 2004 pre-election contract to lead the country together, for better or for worse.

This seems to be happening of late. A series of discords between the two have come to the surface over the past year. The cracks in the partnership are only likely to grow wider in the coming months as the country prepares for general elections next year.

An example, that the two were not getting along, was Kalla's absence at the Halim Perdanakusuma Airport to welcome home Yudhoyono from a series of overseas trips in March. Kalla usually never misses the tradition of briefing the President as soon as he touches down at the airport.

The presidential office has denied all reports of a breakup, but the episode came in the wake of the House of Representatives' rejection of the President's two candidates for Bank Indonesia governor. Kalla's Golkar Party played a big hand in the rejections.

This month, the government declared Yudhoyono's candidates – Thaib Armayn-Gani Kasuba, the winner in the North Maluku election for governor/vice governor. It overruled the provincial legislature's recommendation, which picked Kalla's choice Abdul Gafur-Abdurrahim Fabanyo pair as the winner. The election in November was inconclusive, requiring central government intervention.

Kalla never publicly commented on the ruling, but it is not a coincidence that his party's parliamentary wing has since become vocal critics of the President, including when he hiked fuel prices last month. This is consistent with a recent Golkar internal party meeting which decided to switch from being a supporter to a critic of the Yudhoyono administration.

Kalla too seems to have started distancing himself from the less popular policies of the President. In an interview with Reuters on Monday explaining the government's ruling on Ahmadiyah, he used the word "they" instead of "we" while referring to the government.

These tensions have not flared into a fierce verbal or physical dispute. It's just as well because a power struggle at the top would only destabilize the nation's social, political and economical foundations, already shaken up by political and religious issues and skyrocketing fuel and food prices.

They also know that an open discord would undermine their own reputation and therefore their chances of reelection next year because voters might perceive them as failing to do their job.

But the question is how long can they keep this game up before their rivalries start to interfere in the partnership? How wide will the cracks grow before either one of them calls it quits?

Kalla in an interview with Tempo last year said he planned to quit the partnership three months before the presidential election. But given the obvious growing tension between them, both men may want to end the partnership sooner.

Yudhoyono and Kalla were elected into office in 2004 on one ticket as president and vice president for five years. One cannot force the other to quit. But they could come to a gentlemen's agreement, parting ways earlier, especially as they seem likely to become fierce rivals in the 2009 elections.

Yudhoyono and Kalla should take their cue from Indonesia's first vice president Mohammad Hatta who gracefully resigned in December 1956 due to irreconcilable disagreements with president Sukarno.

That is the kind of statesmanship qualities we expect from our leaders today: The ability to put the interest of the nation before his own. Here is the bonus: The one perceived to be more statesmanship will likely be the winner. Any taker?