Only the naïve make confident predictions about Indonesian politics

In 2004 SBY campaigned for the nation’s top job with businessman Jusuf Kalla, thereby binding Golkar into the government. Golkar gave SBY the numbers on the floor of Parliament, but the compromises required eroded much of his authority.

Megawati, 62, is a lacklustre candidate famous for being aloof and believing she deserves to have the job again just because her dad was the country’s first president. She is widely regarded as being a tool of the military.

Kalla, 67, has been an effective vice-president in the past five years and was instrumental in settling the long-running civil war in Aceh. As a prominent businessman he gave the administration credibility with the big corporations. However he’s not a Javanese, and that’s a major handicap to winning the presidency. He’s also not trusted by the non-Muslims.

SBY, 60, has been unable to stop the imposition of some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in the provinces. These include forcing female bureaucrats and students to wear headscarves, banning alcohol, enforcing prayers and setting up community patrols to sniff out sexual naughtiness, though the Constitution appears to prohibit such local initiatives.

By contrast, and after decades of oppression, the media in Indonesia is now the freest in South-East Asia, robustly pushing the old barriers on a wide range of social and political issues.

Despite doomsayers claiming Indonesia would become another Pakistan as fundamentalism flourished, that hasn’t happened. The battle against terrorism, with significant help from the Australian Federal Police, has notched up many wins against the bombers.

SBY’s push against corruption has had limited success; pulling out the wallet remains the standard way to bypass stalling bureaucrats at all levels.

The judiciary is still a mess, continuing to use colonial Dutch law from early last century. The over-staffed public service remains a dinosaur sturdily resisting attempts to force change. Decentralisation has compounded the confusion. Outsiders trying to do business need to tread warily.

The economy has slumped, though not as much as expected and less than other Asian nations. Poverty and poor quality education remain major concerns, although there have been patchwork successes in improving the lives of those on Kampong Bleak.

The consensus, both inside and outside the Republic seems to be that SBY has made a reasonable fist of handling one of the world’s toughest tasks - and given the line-up against him is clearly the best bloke around.

There are two standout dangers: if he wants to divorce Golkar and get a workable majority in the Parliament, SBY may be forced to cohabit with the PKS and other minor Islamic parties. This could let the extremist tail wag the reformist dog.

The other concern is that the opposition parties frustrated at their inability to find candidates with popular appeal may combine to spoil SBY’s legislative program out of spite. Success here seems less likely; though the emotion is real they’ll find it hard to work together because so many are single-issue or policy-free parties that have yet to learn the arts of compromise.