Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – One of the first rules of being in the public eye is not to give away free kicks – especially when your public is already disposed to seizing any opportunity.

It seems Indonesia's easily offended President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has yet to learn the lesson.

As protests mount over last year's Bank Century bailout, and speculation builds as to how long Dr Yudhoyono's coalition will last, the retired general made a stern pronouncement. Whatever people might think, he was not as "fat, lazy and stupid as a water buffalo".

Given he romped back into office last year, Dr Yudhoyono must have thought he had a bit of goodwill to burn.

The hurt tone came down to a buffalo that protesters brought all the way from Bekasi, on the capital's outskirts, to central Jakarta last week to mark what they branded the failure of Dr Yudhoyono's first 100 days in office.

The dumb beast had a large sign painted on it, declaring its name to be Si BuYa – a wordplay using a Malay term of respect for a community leader but which, from a distance, looked just like the President's widely used nickname, SBY.

Responding to his chiding, the activists tried to bring their prop to town again on Wednesday, now with SBY photos pasted to its flanks and a sign declaring a new name: Si LeBaY Tambun, or the fat foolish one.

The moniker comes from a West Sumatran folk tale about a community leader so venal and indecisive, he always ends up missing out entirely.

Police quickly declared that no more water buffaloes, or anything else likely to disturb the peace, would be allowed to join protests.

Given that such events are largely attended by either pro- or anti-government crowds paid to be bussed into the capital where they bring traffic to even more of a standstill than usual, defining "disturbing the peace" is a challenging task.

A ruling has yet to be made on whether the traditional public slaughtering of chickens to ensure good governance is now to be ended.