SBY's troubled first year in office

By Rachel Harvey
BBC News, Jakarta

Mr Yudhoyono's first year has been difficult

"We will go through difficult times and face huge challenges."

With the benefit of hindsight, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's words, delivered in his inauguration speech on 20 October 2004, sound like a colossal understatement.

Four fatal earthquakes, including the one which caused last December's massive tsunami off the coast of Aceh, an outbreak of polio, avian flu, soaring global oil prices and more bombs in Bali - it has been a tough first year for the president.

Even his own spokesman acknowledges that responding to unforeseen crises has distracted the government from its reform agenda.

"We had to be reactive. We had a lot of big plans, a lot of goals that we wanted to achieve," said Dino Pati Djalal, "but these things sent us off the rails."

In many ways Mr Yudhoyono's presidency has been defined by things beyond his control.

He had only been in office for two months when the tsunami struck, killing more than 130,000 people in Aceh.

It was a disaster on an unprecedented scale, and it prompted unprecedented action.

When you get... what amount to annual terrorist events targeted at western interests, it has an impact Ken Conboy, Risk Management Advisory

Aceh, scene of a long-running separatist insurgency, had been effectively closed to the outside world, but it was not any more.

"He [Mr Yudhoyono] opened the door to foreign assistance and foreign military to come and help," said Endy Bayuni, chief editor of the Jakarta Post newspaper.

"And he organised a big summit in January, basically pleading for help from the international community, and he got it."

The president also managed to persuade or cajole the military and a fractious parliament to support a ground-breaking peace deal between the government and the rebels from the Free Aceh movement (Gam).

It takes deft leadership to fashion hope out of tragedy, and President Yudhoyono deserves the praise he is getting for his performance over Aceh.

Militancy returns

But just as peace was taking root in one part of the country, so violence returned to another.

Three suicide bomb attacks at three cafes on the resort island of Bali on 1 October provided a stark reminder that Indonesia still has a security problem.

Mr Yudhoyono has been praised for his part in the Aceh deal

In fairness, the police have been remarkably successful in terms of arrests and prosecutions since the first Bali bombings three years ago.

The militant Islamic network, Jemaah Islamiah, which has been blamed for that attack and more recent bombings, has definitely been weakened.

But Ken Conboy, of the Risk Management Advisory group, said there was clearly still a threat which needed to be addressed.

"Perception is everything," he said, "and when you get... what amount to annual terrorist events targeted at western interests, it has an impact on foreign investment and on existing investment here in this country."

Others, however, would argue that suffocating bureaucracy and corruption are far more powerful deterrents to investment than terrorist bombs.

There has been some progress in the fight against corruption.

A few high profile cases have been exposed, but it will take a bigger effort to change what is, in effect, an endemic culture.

That is perhaps the most commonly voiced criticism of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - that he has not used his huge popular mandate to push for faster reform.

Brave stand

But there is some evidence that he is prepared to take unpopular decisions when he has to.

Earlier this month, in the face of widespread protests, the government more than doubled the price of fuel.

For years Indonesians have enjoyed cheap petrol, but high global oil prices have made the subsidy bill prohibitive.

Cutting subsidies was an economic necessity. It was also politically risky.

But the gamble seems to have paid off, and anti-government demonstrations have petered out.

Mr Yudhoyono raised fuel prices despite anticipated protests

Perhaps that might encourage Mr Yudhoyono to spend a bit more of his political capital to force the pace of change, because - despite the fact that his personal popularity rating remains consistently high - there are signs of impatience among his supporters.

In the middle of Jakarta's teeming Jatinegara market, between the fried tofu and the Muslim prayer hats, 33-year-old Sahrul runs a tiny, open-fronted shop selling basic medicines.

He voted for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono because he was impressed by what he calls the former general's strength and dignity.

But Sahrul wants to see more action.

"If we look at his performance as a whole, the bombs in Bali and corruption show he's not dealt with those things yet," he said.

"But we really need him to sort out the economy. Right now everything's going down and down. That should be his priority."

Mr Yudhoyono would do well to heed such advice. For all the praise and support that he is quite rightly getting from foreign governments, and from many political pundits at home, ultimately it is people like Sahrul he needs to convince.