Jakarta Globe – AFP, Aug 26, 2014
Sydney. Outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Tuesday he leaves office with a sense of satisfaction after strengthening democracy and the economy during a decade in power.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. (Antara Photo/Andika Wahyu) |
Sydney. Outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Tuesday he leaves office with a sense of satisfaction after strengthening democracy and the economy during a decade in power.
The former
general stands down in October when Joko Widodo, the reform-minded governor of
Jakarta who won July’s presidential polls, takes the reins of Southeast Asia’s
top economy.
In an
interview with The Australian newspaper, Yudhoyono admitted there was more work
to be done, but said he had accomplished much.
“I leave my
office with a sense of satisfaction that I have tried to do my best to serve
the nation, and that at the end of my 10 years in office Indonesia is a
stronger nation, a stronger democracy and a stronger economy,” he said.
Yudhoyono
took on a nation suffering widespread graft, an insurgency in Aceh province and
bombings by the Jemaah Islamiyah network when he was elected in Indonesia’s
first direct presidential poll in 2004.
“We had
many challenges but, one by one, we fixed our problems,” he said.
“We
resolved the longstanding separatist conflict in Aceh. We stabilized the
situation in Papua. We survived the tsunami crisis [of 2004] and many other
natural disasters.
“We fought
corruption hard, not always successfully. We neutralized and disrupted
terrorist groups. We pursued a more active international engagement in a
turbulent world,” he added.
Yudhoyono
said Indonesia, where around half of the mostly Muslim population of 250
million are poor, had also weathered the global financial crisis and completed
direct elections for all local leaders.
Economic
growth had been healthy, averaging 5.9 percent during the period of 2009 to
2013, he said.
And
although it had fallen to 5.2 percent in the first part of 2014, Indonesia was
still experiencing higher economic growth than many other nations.
“In fact,
in the G20, Indonesia has the second highest growth after China,” he said,
adding that he expected growth to reach 6.0 percent or more within two years.
The
president said that while he had made the unpopular decision to increase the
price of petrol last year, and this year hiked electricity and gas, costly fuel
subsidies had needed to be adjusted.
“My hope is
that the new government will give the subsidy to the poor. We should not give
the subsidy to the commodities but to the people who need it: the poor,” he
said.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife Ani Yudhoyono at the legislative complex in Senayan on Friday. (Antara Photo/Ismar Patrizki) |
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