Just eighteen months in office and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's approval rating has hit an all time low. A new survey released in Jakarta shows just 37 percent of the public is happy with the president's performance. The public's major concerns are the economy, unemployment, the rise in fuel and electricty prices and planned changes to the labor laws.

Presenter/Interviewer: Linda LoPresti

Speakers: Ed Aspinall, Indonesian political analyst at the Australian National University

Aspinall: I don't think those results are particularly surprising, it's not simply that the honeymoon period is over, but there's a sort of a fundamental contradiction in Indonesian politics which has applied not only for SBY but also to his predecessors, namely that there's a continuing atmosphere of very high expectations in the populace about, firstly about restoring economic growth and welfare to pre-crisis levels, but secondly about pushing through political reforms. But on the other hand, the other side of that contradiction is that many of the reforms or the steps which are now required to set Indonesia on its feet as it were are really very deep, systemic changes which are required. It's not simply a matter now of getting the institutional architecture or the grand design right, but there's a need to thoroughly purge elements of government like the judiciary of corruption, and that's the kind of process which is going to take years rather than months.

Lopresti: Are people perhaps not being quite realistic in judging his performance, because since taking office there's been a number of tragedies, the tsunami disaster and more terrorist attacks in Bali, and there's also the problems leftover from the previous administration?

Aspinall: Well whether they're realistic or not I mean this decline certainly mirrors earlier declines we saw with previous presidents, although it also should be pointed out that when we compare where he stands in the polls compared to where his predecessors, Megawati Sukarnoputri and previously Abdurrahman Wahid stood in the polls at similar periods in their own presidency, he's still doing much better than his predecessors, and I think that's partly because his response to some of those tragedies you've mentioned have generally been considered satisfactory by the population.

Lopresti: Now the poor state of the economy was one of the major concerns raised by those polled. Now this is despite the new economic team that he assembled late last year, a team that clearly hasn't impressed the people. Has he surrounded himself do you think with the wrong people making the wrong policy decisions?

Aspinall: That's probably part of it, but I mean again he faces a very difficult context on the international scene as it were he's got competition in those areas which used to really drive forward the Indonesian economy like manufacturing and so on, competition from places like Vietnam and China. And on the other hand also harming the investment climate, you still get this very strong perception among foreign investors in particular but also domestic ones, that there are remaining serious problems of corruption, lack of predictability in the business climate, high cost economy and so on. These problems which again aren't really amenable to any kind of a quick fix.

Lopresti: Is he still in a position despite what appears to be his continuously declining popularity, is he still in a position to press ahead with his agenda? Can he gain wide support for his policies in the future?

Aspinall: One thing although his popularity has now dropped below 50 per cent, we've got to remember that this is in a context where he doesn't really face a very credible opposition. So when we compare his popularity rating to that of potential contenders, he's still much, much higher. So in that sense he still does face a fairly open political terrain with the capacity to take some fairly bold steps if he so desired. And this is the second problem really that it's been a hallmark of SBY's presidency that he really is a political leader who doesn't just think once or twice before making a costly decision, he really thinks twenty times. And he's been widely criticised as being too hesitant by many commentators and members of the public in Indonesia.