The first 100 days of President Yudhoyono’s second term in office have made the governance of democratic Indonesia appear cumbersome. It went wrong early on when a number of unanticipated battlegrounds that weren’t even the president’s own choices seized public interest: the investigation into the Bank Century bailout and the criminal charges from the office of the Attorney General and the police against top officials of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Indonesia’s main investigative watchdog.

Whereas the first battleground has mainly become a showcase for parliamentarian theatrics, the latter has severely blemished Yudhoyono’s image as a fighter against corruption. It also has reaffirmed the president’s image as a leader who lacks bite when it counts most. The charges against the KPK officials are widely believed to have been bogus. Critics have therefore decried Yudhoyono’s meekness in defending the commission and his refusal to sack Attorney General Hendarman Supandji and Head of the National Police Bambang Hendarso Danuri (one should add here that parliamentarians were equally coy in their stance). The result is that, in the words of Teten Masduki, chief coordinator of the Indonesia Corruption Watch group, “SBY has allowed the weakening of anti-corruption institutions that were already effective”. After remarkable progress during the president’s first tenure, the fight against corruption is now in danger of stagnation. While 2009’s Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index score is slightly better than that of the previous year, Indonesia remains a prominent member of the world’s most corrupt countries.

To be fair, Yudhoyono’s current administration did tackle a number of important issues which, however, went largely unnoticed behind the media frenzy surrounding Bank Century and the turf war between KPK and police. As reported by the Jakarta Globe daily, among the projects completed during Yudhoyono’s first 100 days are a flood-control dam in Medan, the Cilaki bridge in West Java, the Amplas flyover in North Sumatra; the Oerip Sumahardjo overpass in South Sulawesi; the Benel dam in Bali, public housing projects in West and Central Java; and several water-treatment plants. Last Tuesday, in an early reaction to expected criticism of his 100-day record, the president inaugurated ten state-backed infrastructure projects in five provinces. Improving Indonesia’s pitiable infrastructure is seen as vital for developing regional economies and creating new jobs.

All this leads to the feeling that Indonesia keeps making headlines for the wrong reasons. In many cases, this has been the result of Yudhoyono’s administration’s own decisions and policies, as in the international media’s indignant emphasis on the “anti-pornography” bill. The bill, which became effective in late 2008, bans, among other things, public displays which can be seen as arousing sexual feelings. Last year this stirred local dance groups to publicly call on Indonesians not to vote for Islamist parties in April’s parliamentary elections. The crux, however, remains that the porn bill was supported by nationalist parties like the President’s own Democrat Party as well and eventually signed by the president himself. While it is now effective law, implementation has been very spotty and random. Most recently, four women were arrested for “sexy dancing” a party at New Year’s Eve in a club in Bandung (West Java’s Sudanese culture seems particularly affected by the bill). The manager of the venue and the event organizer were also detained. The Bandung incident remains an exception given that there are countless bars and clubs which have remained unaffected. But regardless that the bill has made little real difference on the ground and that the police’s motive for the arrests might have been to be paid-off later it makes for the sort of news that a good many of foreign journalists perceive as noteworthy and are only too eager to pick up.

Another example for the international media’s fixation on the type of Islamic agenda that appears unseemly and irrational has been the rulings of Indonesia’s Muslim clerical body: the Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI). A year ago, MUI issued fatwas (religious opinion by a qualified scholar) against smoking, abstinence from voting, underage marriage, yoga, vasectomies, abortion, “inter-religious marriages”, and the Islamic Ahmadiyah sect. All of these decrees have received a great deal of media attention overseas, despite the fact that most have existed for years in similar form and that fatwas have no jurisdictional power.

The most recent outcry was caused by a body of Muslim clerics from East Java that represents some female religious schools in the area. The clerics declared several female practices as being haram (forbidden by Islam) and pressed MUI to issue fatwas against them. The haram -deemed practices barred women from working as ojek drivers (motorbike taxis) and also from using ojek operated by men. They also deemed rasta-style hairdos and the straightening, re-bonding and dyeing of hair as morally wrong. Photo shoots of unmarried couples were also classified as haram. The news from East Java made it into headlines in Indonesia as elsewhere, often implying that it represented the view of Indonesian Muslim clerics in general. As this is surely not the case, the publicity given to a small group of local religious zealots is misleading.

Nevertheless, the Yudhoyono administration must be accounted, too, as it has been craving in to Islamist pressure for some time, allowing organizations such a MUI a greater public role. In the case of the Bank Century, it is a scandal carried over from the president’s first term. The hubbub it has set off in parliament shows that whilst Indonesian coalitions are always broad, they at the same time tend to be brittle and shallow. In the confrontation involving the KPK, the president opted to save the offices of the police and the attorney general at the expense of the KPK’s repute. His administration therefore has to take part of the blame that Indonesia is too often in the international headlines for the wrong reasons, possibly diverting from important achievements in other areas.