Boediono and Australia

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono running mate Boediono has Aussie links | The Australian

THE man almost certain to become Indonesia's next vice-president, central bank chief Boediono, has a well-established history in Australia that will deepen relations between Canberra and Jakarta.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono plans to announce tomorrow night the 66-year-old technocrat as his running mate for presidential polls in July.

Dr Boediono, who spent his student years in Perth, Melbourne and Canberra in the 1960s and 70s, was a "wonderful" choice for the position despite being "the world's most unlikely politician", close friend and fellow economist Hal Hill, from the Australian National University, said yesterday.

"It's important for what it says about SBY's strengths, the fact that he doesn't have to horse-trade so much," Professor Hill said, using Mr Yudhoyono's popular nickname.

"The key message is that SBY had a wide menu of choices, including figures such as (the former ruling Golkar party's) Akbar Tandjung, but he's gone with Boedi."

Professor Hill said Dr Boediono, who has a reputation for incorruptibility, was important in Indonesian public life "because he has held every significant economic post in the country and he's the only major one who straddles the Suharto to post-Suharto eras. He can talk on almost any economic issue and he will be listened to by any faction".

"He's technically proficient, he's never made a mistake, and he's one of the tiny number of Indonesian economists who are known internationally."

After playing senior roles in the central bank, Bank Indonesia, during the final years of the Suharto government, Dr Boediono was planning minister under BJ Habibie from 1998 to 1999, finance minister under former president Megawati, and then elevated to the post of co-ordinating minister for the economy in 2005 by Mr Yudhoyono.

He was made central bank governor a year ago, with equally capable fellow technocrat Sri Mulyani Indrawati stepping in to the economy role on his departure. That pair's reform-driven partnership is set to continue if, as seems apparent, Mr Yudhoyono and Dr Boediono win presidential elections set to begin with a first round of voting on July 8.

The choice of Dr Boediono has shattered the Indonesian political establishment, cementing the President's reformist credentials at the same time as it leaves the various groups opposing Mr Yudhoyono's Democrat Party little room to move.

Chief among these are the former ruling Golkar Party, which will stand Vice-President Jusuf Kalla as its candidate alongside retired general and head of the People's Conscience Party, Wiranto.

Two other key players in the battle, the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle's Ms Megawati and retired general Prabowo Subianto, from the Greater Indonesia Movement, are each now mopping up coalition partners in an attempt to present a credible challenge to the Democrats by the time nominations close on Saturday.

Likely coalition partners for Mr Yudhoyono's tilt at a second term in government were yesterday also in disarray over the announcement, claiming they would not support his party in the house unless they won concessions.

Each of them had been hoping Mr Yudhoyono would select one of their own as his running mate. However, they might have to settle for the crumbs of a few minor cabinet posts, after the Democrats won more than 25 per cent of the vote in April's parliamentary elections.

Political scientist Arbi Sanit, from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, said the ascent of Dr Boediono to the presidential ticket demonstrated Dr Yudhoyono's "long-term" thinking and would help the country "find a way out of the global crisis".

Professor Hill said the appearance of such a prominent Australian alumnus at the top of the Indonesian political tree was a good omen for bilateral relations.

Although his PhD was from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr Boediono spent a year of that period writing his thesis at the ANU, as well as gaining undergraduate and master's degrees in economics at the University of Western Australia and Monash University respectively, and working for some years in the late 1970s as a research assistant at the ANU.

"If things ever get a bit derailed, it means better access, for one," Professor Hill said. "Australia is the biggest provider of offshore tertiary education to Indonesia, and we are now seeing the dividend of that."