SBY has chosen his running mate, the Governor of Bank Indonesia, Boediono. Who, I hasten to add in the style of the American press, "like many Indonesians uses only one name." I guess we can get used to this phrase because we're going to see a lot of it in the future, assuming current predictions of an easy victory for the incumbent hold true.

SBY-Boediono

Boediono is a solid pick. SBY is pretty popular no matter whom he
chooses as a running mate, so he doesn't need to use his VP to shore up any
type of political support from any particular group. So he's picked a technocrat
with a great reputation for clean and capable macroeconomic management.
This is precisely what a large developing country needs facing a global
economy such as this one. I have good sources that tell me that when
SBY first contacted Boediono about the job, Boediono's response was
"well, I'm worried about whether or not we can find someone responsible
to run Bank Indonesia." SBY ate that right up.

The other parties are screaming now that Boediono is a "neoliberal" and
that he "doesn't represent Muslims." These are weak complaints.
Boediono is a neoliberal, but he's not an ideologue. His supporters say
that he's careful and attentive to the differences between textbook
macroeconomics and real world conditions. And to the extent that he is a neoliberal, that just might be a good thing. The complaint that he doesn't represent Muslims is even sillier. At the end of the day, the four Islamic-affiliated parties that support SBY (they hoped that this would give them a VP pick, and accordingly were the ones fussing about no Muslim representation) have all now fallen into line behind SBY-Boediono.

The other two official tickets are Megawati Sukarnoputri and Prabowo Subianto (PDI-P and Gerindra) and Jusuf Kalla and Wiranto (Golkar and Hanura). I have fewer positive things to say about these two tickets. I don't trust Mega to govern well, Kalla to govern cleanly, or Prabowo or Wiranto to uphold the rule of law.

Mega and Prabowo, Wiranto and Kalla

Here's another press mention of Thursday's research presentation. I should note that if this author were my student, I would report him for a violation of academic integrity for improper use of quotation marks. The author also seems to miss completely the point of our research, misinterpreting both the findings and our interpretation of them.