I do not understand the contents of the president’s speech

Indonesia was glued to the TV last night waiting to hear what the President would say about the KPK crisis. If you expected him to come out guns blazing, then you would have been sorely disappointed.

SBY told the nation that as head of state he did not have the authority to stop the Police or the Attorney-General. I'm no constitutional lawyer, but that sounds right to me.

"[The] better solution... is to not take this case to court, while continuing to abide by the principle of justice," said the President.

It is not surprising that the President confused the nation with this little ditty. He used a special language known as lawyer speak. Translated, he is telling the Police and Attorney General to drop the case, but don't break any laws in the process.

Most people I know are disappointed. They wanted the President to swoop in, kill the dragon and save the princess -- not a lawyer.

I am still mulling this over, but my initial reaction is that I think the President has done the right thing. He has upheld the law, and maintained the integrity of the Presidency. I respect that. It is far more important than making people happy.

But worry too much, good people. One of two things will happen:

• the Attorney-General and Police chief will follow the President's recommendation and stop, or 
• the case will continue.

The smart thing would be to halt the case. But I think the best thing for Indonesia would be for the case to go ahead. Only then will ordinary Indonesians and bules alike get to see just how diseased these two institutions are.

I want to end the fighting

Before the KPK crisis, I would have described the President as "cautious", "conservative" and very much a "consensus man". He was slow to act, but probably because he preferred the Javanese approach to democracy over authoritarianism -- get everyone to agree before you impose your decision.

During the crisis, I added "smart". I was willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt. His insistence that he was not going to interfere indicated that he knew that if they were given enough rope, the Police and the other nasties involved would hang themselves.

Now, as we draw towards the end of the case, I wonder. Do I still feel the same about the President? On one hand, his sudden change of heart could be seen as very self-serving.

On the other, doesn't the fact that he waited for Team 8's decision, then gave the Police and the AGO the chance to cancel this reaffirm my earlier view of the President?

I think it does. In my mind, at least, the President has redeemed himself. Well, almost. I still have a nagging doubt. Do you feel the same?

• Former cabinet minister Lady Ashton gets foreign policy post

• Tony Blair loses bid to land European job

• Nicholas Watt and Ian Traynor in Brussels
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 18.29 GMT
• Article history

Tony Blair is not surprised that he failed to secure the post because he was aware of the 'direction of travel' when he telephoned a series of EU leaders. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

 

Herman Van Rompuy, the centre-right Belgian prime minister, won the race became the first president of the European Council tonight as Tony Blair was forced to admit defeat in his long-running campaign for the job.

But Britain was rewarded with the key post of high representative for foreign policy, going to the former Labour cabinet minister Lady Ashton.

Tony Blair bowed out of the contest when it became clear that centre-right leaders, who dominate the EU, are determined that the post, created by the Lisbon treaty, should go to their group.

Van Rompuy was strongly supported by France and Germany, and has a reputation as a builder of coalitions.

"Every country should emerge victorious from negotiations," he told a news conference this evening. "Even if unity remains our strength, our diversity remains our wealth."

Gordon Brown moved onto "Plan B" after making a final push for Blair at a meeting of centre-left leaders in Brussels shortly before the summit. To nobody's surprise, it became clear that Blair enjoyed no support in the group. At the meeting Brown pulled the Blair nomination off the table and proposed Ashton, a former leader of the Lords, for high commissioner instead.

"As it became clear that the chances of a Blair presidency, for a number of good reasons, were declining, the prime minister made the decisive intervention in this meeting," Brown's spokesman said.

Ashton enjoys strong support in Brussels and is highly regarded by the commission president, José Manuel Barroso.

Ashton, who has never been elected to public office, was a junior minister and leader of the House of Lords in 2007 and had a history as an anti-nuclear weapons campaigner.

She has barely caused a ripple during her year as EU trade chief and has no known foreign policy experience.

Blair is not surprised that he failed to secure the post because he was aware of the "direction of travel" when he telephoned a series of EU leaders.

It is understood that he would have been unsure of taking the post when the Swedish government, which holds the rotating EU presidency, indicated in a paper on Wednesday that the president would have little or no role in foreign affairs.

This appeared to run counter to the Lisbon treaty, which said the president would oversee foreign policy in conjunction with the high representative.

The two new officials are supposed to give the EU a bigger role in such global issues as climate change, terrorism and trade amid the rise of China, Brazil and India.

The two top jobs were created by an EU reform treaty that takes effect in less than two weeks, on 1 December. The treaty is vague on what the EU president is supposed to do, other than encourage more European integration.

While the EU president was initially seen as the bigger job, much attention has shifted to the foreign minister, who gets a say over the bloc's annual 7 billion ($10.5 billion) foreign aid budget and will head a new 5,000-strong EU diplomatic corps.

Van Rompuy was put forward for the president's job by Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt who chaired Thursday's summit, diplomats said.

Before the summit, Van Rompuy met with Belgium's King Albert to discuss the possible selection of his successor as premier.

Van Rompuy, 62, is a technocrat with a penchant for haiku poetry. A Dutch-speaking Christian Democrat, he is unknown abroad, and even in Belgium he keeps a low profile. Or as a Belgian commentator recently put it: "Van Rompuy opens his mouth only to breathe."

He drifted into the Belgian premiership in 2008 when his predecessor got bogged down in a nasty linguistic dispute between Dutch- and French-speaking politicians.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and often-outspoken President Nicolas Sarkozy of France did not reveal a preference before the meeting.

The EU leaders have been at pains to strike the right balance between big countries and small, rich and poor, east and west, socialists and conservatives.

Britain had been pushing for a high-profile president. Others like France and Spain favored a low-profile person limited to chairing summits and greeting foreign dignitaries.

Britain's Brown opted to promote Ashton as foreign policy chief after he realized Blair had no backing from other EU leaders.

Smaller EU nations loathed the idea of being led by Blair, whose strong support for the Iraq war angered many Europeans. They also have expressed the desire a president from a country that uses the EU's common euro currency and participates in its passport-free travel zone. Britain has opted out of those EU projects.

"I will not bow to public pressure," grumbles the President, proving once again that he must have the crappiest political advisers in the history of politics.

Not only is the President ignoring the fact that public pressure is driving REAL reform for the first time since 1945, he has failed to distance himself with Public Enemies #1 and #2, the Police Chief and the Attorney-General.

To make things worse, he's really packed on the beef.

Another thing added to his ever-growing to-do-and-no-where-near-complete list.