Alfian, Jakarta – Indonesia's future leaders should ideally be aged under 40 years as they are less likely to have been "contaminated" by the New Order regime, an observer said Saturday.

Bima Arya Sugiarto from the Lead Institute at Paramadina University said that the older generation should no longer lead the country as they were exposed for too long to the New Order regime.

Speaking at a discussion titled "It's time for the youth to lead Indonesia", Bima said the younger generation should take over all levels of leadership. Indonesia will hold its next general elections in 2009.

"The 2009 presidential election should at least have the vice president and half of the Cabinet from the younger generation," Bima said. One young leader, however, said it was not yet time for her generation to take charge.

Zannuba "Yenny" Ariffah Chafsoh Rahman Wahid, secretary general of the National Awakening Party (PKB), said she was not ready to be a leader, saying she still needed to learn a lot about the country's problems.

"It's not about my age but the are plenty of problems I still have to study," she told the discussion. "Running for president is also very expensive when compared to running for mayor, regent or governor."

Yenny said the most important thing to do when leading the country was to have empathy. "Most people are confused about what to do when they are appointed or elected to a public position."

The discussion coincided with the commemoration of Youth Pledge Day on Sunday.

Also speaking at the discussion were Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) executive Maruarar Sirait and well-known movie director Garin Nugroho.

Currently only former president and PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri has been openly nominated by the party to run for the presidency. The PKB has not officially named its candidate but it is likely to be founder and chief patron Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.

While there are yet to be new names for presidential candidates, Bima said major parties already had young members with potential.

"Regulations on elections allowing direct elections and independent candidates are very supportive for the emergence of new figures," he said. "Society is also demanding such a change."

While agreeing that the young generation should be involved more in the political realm, Yenny – Gus Dur's daughter – said both old and young generations should not dichotomized.

She also criticized the attitudes of some young politicians. "Some young politicians seem very idealistic at the beginning but once they get power, they also become corrupt," she said.

In this regard, Bima said young politicians should have three assets in addition to capacity and integrity. "They must independent financially, faithful and should enter politics together with other young politicians," he said.

Although all speakers agreed the younger generation was needed in Indonesian politics, they thought it was unlikely that any party would nominate a young member as a presidential candidate.

"We still named Megawati as a presidential candidate because she is the only figure that can compete with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono," said Maruarar, adding that Megawati's nomination was also supported by the party's younger members.