Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's three years in office have yielded only mediocre results in the fields of the economy, public service and law enforcement, political experts say.

Boni Hargens of the University of Indonesia said Yudhoyono's only real success had been in maintaining stability.

"He has managed to maintain the country's stability by at least minimizing the effects of the separatist movements threatening Indonesia, although some of them are not resolved yet," he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He said the public had expected much more from Yudhoyono when he first took office three years ago.

"The biggest problem in Yudhoyono's presidency is the lack of focus and priority. The economic sector is a model example of the unclear manner in which he runs the country," Boni said.

According to Boni, the people's needs should be the basis of the country's economic blueprint, as demanded in the Constitution, yet Indonesia has adopted a market economy.

"The rescinding of the fuel subsidy is an example of why a people-based economy is only effective" on paper, he said.

A retired Army general, Yudhoyono won the 2004 presidential election to become the country's first directly elected head of state. Yudhoyono received 60.68 percent of the 153 million votes cast. His closest competitor, Megawati Soekarnoputri, got 39.38 percent.

Indria Samego of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences said there had been a decline in public services dealing with people's welfare during Yudhoyono's administration.

He said a rigid bureaucracy and expensive services, especially in the education and public health sectors, were a burden to the public. "Another factor that has left the country far behind is there are too many ministries, with some that do not function well," he said.

A legal expert from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Denny Indrayana, said that although law enforcement under Yudhoyono was better than in previous presidencies, there were still problems. He pointed out that no concrete action had been taken against former president Soeharto's family members and cronies accused of corruption.

"We cannot make Indonesia a corruption-free country unless we take strong and fast action on the report from the World Bank and the United Nations that lists Soeharto at the top of the most corrupt former leaders in the world, and on corruption cases in Indonesia's defense pillars," Denny told the Post.

A recent poll by the Indonesia Survey Institute found that if a presidential election was held this year, Yudhoyono would likely win reelection. The poll found Yudhoyono's closest competition was still Megawati.

"In the past three years he has managed to maintain his popularity," Boni said. "But if he's not able to improve his performance in the next two years, then I would drop his grade from a C to C minus, meaning that it would not be appropriate for him to be Indonesia's president again."