Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang, << yood HOH yoh noh, soo SEE loh BAHM bahng, >> (1949-…), was president of Indonesia from 2004 to 2014. In 2004, he won the country’s first election in which the voters directly chose the president. Previously, the president had been elected by the People’s Consultative Assembly, which was then the highest governing body in Indonesia. Yudhoyono ran as the candidate of the Democrat Party, which he had cofounded in 2002. He was reelected in 2009.
A former army general, Yudhoyono campaigned on a platform of reducing corruption in government, boosting the economy, and battling terrorism. He also said he would work to resolve the conflict in the province of Aceh, where separatist rebels were battling government forces.
Yudhoyono was born on Sept. 9, 1949, in the town of Pacitan on the island of Java. He graduated from Indonesia’s military academy in 1973. Afterward, he rose quickly though the military ranks under the regime of former President Suharto. On a number of occasions, he was sent to the United States and Europe for military training. In 1991, he earned a master’s degree in management from Webster University in Missouri.
Much of Yudhoyono’s military service was in East Timor. He took part in Indonesia’s invasion of that territory in 1975, and he served several tours of duty there during the 24-year Indonesian occupation. By 1999, Yudhoyono had risen to the post of chief of territorial affairs in the Indonesian army. Yudhoyono also led Indonesia’s peacekeeping forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1990’s. When he retired from military service in 2000, the military gave him honorary four-star general status.
In 2000, Yudhoyono joined the government of President Abdurrahman Wahid. Yudhoyono served briefly as minister for mines and energy, but he was soon promoted to chief minister for security and political affairs. In 2001, Abdurrahman, who was facing impeachment (formal charges of misconduct), asked Yudhoyono to declare a state of emergency. Yudhoyono refused and was subsequently fired.
Later in 2001, when Megawati Sukarnoputri became president, she reappointed Yudhoyono as chief security and political minister. The following year, he became well known internationally for his efforts to fight Islamic terrorism. These efforts occurred in the aftermath of the deadly bombings of two nightclubs on the island of Bali in October 2002. In 2004, disputes arose between Megawati and Yudhoyono, and Yudhoyono resigned from his post. Later that year, he defeated Megawati in the presidential election. Around the same time, he earned a doctor’s degree in agricultural economics from Bogor Agricultural University in western Java.
