SBY and Leadership

I just want to make a brief comment on our current president, SBY… I just can’t stand the guy anymore. His indecisiveness has been crippling and harming this nation a great deal. His public announcement of forgiving Soeharto in the name of the people has been a shameful precedent… You don’t have to be very smart to realize that in a country which claimed itself to be “Negara Hukum” people has to be tried first in the court of law in order to be clear what he is guilty of. Soeharto was never tried, thus people still haven’t heard the legal court decision of his final status. A leader is someone who should make a decision fast and have the courage to bear the consequences, whatever it might be. But this president has been committing the sin of omission (guilty because of inactions). If he is truly a leader, he would go to the public and present the case of whether we should or should not prosecute Soeharto. Part of the job of a leader is to shape public opinion and persuade the people with the power of your rhetoric and persuasion. Instead, he did nothing to set the record straight regarding Soeharto. Thus, this nation is once again has to suffer in a limbo state of mind. Like I said in my previous writing, Soekarno also had the same treatment as Soeharto. It seems to me we haven’t learned a lot from our history…

I’m closing this writing with an observation of SBY’s presidency. Lincoln once famously said “I’d rather be right than be President,” now you inverse the statement, and it couldn’t be more accurate of our current President “I’d rather be President than be right.”
SBY seems to me the most mediocre president we’ve ever had, who are content that his name will be written someday in the future in history textbook as one of the Indonesian President without us being able to tell our children and grandchildren what his accomplishments or his tragedy is. Contrast this with President Bush’s presidency right after 9/11 up until around a year ago (now he’s a lame duck), you can say what you want about this current US President, but he sure knows how to use his powerful office to influence events around the world, despite the disastrous consequences of his decisions along the way.

Nothing would suffice to describe SBY being a President other than saying “Such a waste of power…"