Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

At 75 years old, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has this physical status:

Yudhoyono was appointed mining and energy minister in the cabinet of President Abdurrahman Wahid in 1999. According to General Wiranto, who assisted Wahid in the formation of the Cabinet, he had recommended to the president that Yudhoyono would do better as Army chief of staff. However, Wahid rejected the idea and Yudhoyono became the minister of mining and energy instead. At the same time, Yudhoyono ended his military career with the rank of lieutenant general, although he would be made honorary general in 2000.

Yudhoyono's popularity grew, even as minister of mining and energy. In June 2000, there were rumours that Wahid, because of his lack of skill as an administrator was going to appoint a first minister to look after the day-to-day running of the government. Yudhoyono's name appeared as a potential candidate for the position, although eventually Wahid appointed Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri as the day to day administrator.

In August 2000, after a Cabinet reshuffle, Yudhoyono became the coordinating minister for politic and security affairs. One of his tasks was to separate the army from politics. This was in line with his reformist ideas on the future of Indonesian military, and is a view he has held since his days in an army policy center. He said at that time:

Another task that Yudhoyono was given was as an intermediary between Wahid and the Suharto family. At the time, Wahid was trying to make Suharto hand back all the money which he had allegedly obtained through corruption when he was president. Yudhoyono was sent by Wahid to convey this wish and to negotiate with the former first family. However, Yudhoyono was not successful in this venture.

At the beginning of 2001, with political pressure increasing on him, Wahid ordered Yudhoyono to form a crisis centre with Yudhoyono as chairman The purpose of this crisis centre was to assist the president in giving policy advice and was headquartered at Yudhoyono's office. It seemed as if because of this appointment, Yudhoyono could be considered one of Wahid's men, however Yudhoyono would break ranks from Wahid in July 2001 when the latter was facing impeachment. In desperation, Wahid issued a decree freezing the People's Representative Council (DPR) and then asked Yudhoyono to declare a state of emergency to further strengthen his position. Yudhoyono refused to accept this, and Wahid dismissed him.

On 23 July 2001, in a special session, the MPR impeached Wahid and replaced him with Megawati as president. A few days later when the MPR assembled to elect a new vice-president, Yudhoyono threw his name in the hat and competed against Golkar's Akbar Tanjung and United Development Party's (PPP) Hamzah Haz. Yudhoyono and Akbar lost out to Hamzah who became the vice-president.

Yudhoyono was appointed to his old position of coordinating minister of political and security affairs in Megawati's new cabinet. After the October 2002 Bali bombing, he oversaw the hunt for and arrest of those responsible, and gained a reputation both in Indonesia and abroad as one of the few Indonesian politicians serious about the War on Terrorism. His speech during the one-year anniversary of the Bali bombing (in which many Australians were killed) was praised by the Australian media and public.

Yudhoyono also dealt with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), a separatist movement wanting to separate the Province of Aceh from Indonesia. On his advice, Megawati declared martial law in Aceh on 19 May 2003. This martial law was then extended in November 2003.

Yudhoyono's supporters saw Yudhoyono's participation in the vice-presidential election as a sign of his popularity and recognised Yudhoyono's potential as a possible leader for Indonesia. One of these supporters, Vence Rumangkang approached Yudhoyono with the idea of forming a political party to help shore up support for the 2004 presidential elections. Yudhoyono approved of the idea and after going through the basic concepts, left Rumangkang in charge of forming the Party.

From 12–19 August 2001, Rumangkang began holding a series of meetings to discuss the formation of the party while holding consultations with Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono personally led the meetings on 19 and 20 August 2001, and the basic outline of the Democratic Party was finalised.

On 9 September 2001, the formation of the party was officially declared and on 10 September it was registered at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

The organizers behind Democratic Party's formation went to extreme lengths to make sure that PD was Yudhoyono's personal political party. The declaration of its formation was 9 September 2001, which was Yudhoyono's birthday and to start off with, the Party had 99 members.

The United Democratic Nationhood Party (PPDK) was the first to bring up the subject of nomination. In September 2003, Yudhoyono's own party began to make preparations in case Yudhoyono was willing to accept a presidential nomination. The Democratic Party then initiated a publicity campaign to promote Yudhoyono as a candidate. For his part, Yudhoyono was not responsive both to PPDK or the Democratic Party's manoeuvrings to nominate him and continued his duties as minister. PPDK was disappointed in Yudhoyono's reaction and the Democratic Party continued to wait for Yudhoyono to resign his position as was expected of all presidential candidates apart from the incumbent president and vice-president.

The turning point came on 1 March 2004, when Yudhoyono's secretary, Sudi Silalahi announced to the media that for the last six months, Yudhoyono had been excluded from policy decision-making in the field of politics and security. On 2 March 2004, Megawati responded that she had never excluded Yudhoyono, while her husband, Taufiq Kiemas called Yudhoyono childish for complaining to the media instead of the president herself. On 8 March 2004, Yudhoyono sent a letter asking for permission to meet the president about his ministerial authority. Megawati did not respond when she received the letter, although she invited Yudhoyono along to a cabinet meeting on 11 March 2004. Yudhoyono did not attend the cabinet meeting and instead held a press conference at his office and announced his resignation from the position of coordinating minister of political and security affairs. He also announced that he was ready to be nominated as a presidential candidate.

Yudhoyono's popularity skyrocketed after his falling out with Megawati as he was seen by the people as the underdog. However this popularity did not translate to a victory for the Democratic Party at the 2004 legislative elections. The party won 7.5% of the votes, which was still enough to nominate Yudhoyono as a presidential candidate. Yudhoyono accepted the nomination and picked Golkar's Jusuf Kalla as his running mate. Aside from the Democratic Party, their presidential and vice-presidential candidacy was supported by the Crescent Star Party (PBB), the Reform Star Party (PBR) and the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI).

Yudhoyono's manifesto for the future of Indonesia, summarised in a book titled "Vision For Change" written by him and distributed for free during the campaign, was built on four pillars: prosperity, peace, justice and democracy. At the top of his agenda was a plan for increasing economic prosperity, aiming for economic growth of at least 7% and a revival of small and medium-sized enterprises. He also put forward policies to offer better credit lines, to cut red tape, improve labour laws and to root out corruption from the top down. He told an interviewer:

Yudhoyono's perceived communication skills made him the front-runner throughout the election campaign, according to many opinion polls and the opinions of election commentators, ahead of the other candidates (Megawati, Wiranto, Amien Rais, and Hamzah). On 5 July 2004, Yudhoyono participated in the first round of the presidential election, coming first with 33% of the votes. However, 50% of votes were required for a new president and vice-president to be elected, and this meant Yudhoyono going into a run-off against Megawati.

In the run-off, Yudhoyono faced a challenge from Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), forming a national coalition with Golkar, the PPP, Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) and the Indonesian National Party (PNI). Yudhoyono then declared that his coalition, which now received political support from the National Awakening Party (PKB), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), would be the people's coalition. On 20 September 2004, Yudhoyono participated in the run-off election, winning it with 60.87% of the vote. Yudhoyono was inaugurated as president on 20 October 2004. In February 2010, SBY was named as the political figure who had achieved The Gold Standard in Political Communications on YouTube by the influential Public Affairs Asia network and magazine.

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