Haji Muhammad Soeharto

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Soeharto, can you recall that name? Maybe some of you did not recognize that man. But, for your information, he was the former president of the Indonesian Republic. And, yes, he died on 27th January 2008.

Soeharto was born on 8th June 1921. His parent was Kertosudiro and Sukirah. He was born in Dusun Kemusuk, Argomulyo village, Sedayu subdistrict, Bantul regency, Yogyakarta Province. His parent was a farmer. Soeharto grew up with a family which we can say cannot be considered as rich. So his childhood was a hard life.

Soeharto married Siti Hartinah, the daughter of the District Chief in Wuryantoro, Solo. He was married on 26th December 1947, when he was 26 years old. Twenty years later, exactly on 12th March 1967, Soeharto acceded to be presidency by means of the council decision. Then on 27th March 1968 he was elected as the 2nd president of the Indonesian Republic replacing Soekarno. His presidency called “Orde Baru” or “The New Order”. He was elected seven times as a president. The last was on 10th March 1998. Before that his wife, Siti Hartinah died on 28th April 1996, leaving Soeharto with six children. After 32 years run for president, it was time to end it. On 21st May 1998 his vice president, BJ Habibie replaced him. From that day on he was no longer president.

After he retired from the presidency, people began to sue Soeharto for his corruption, collusion, and nepotism case. The TIME Magazine wrote about Soeharto case also. It became controversy. As we know every great man, has a great influence, and has many big mistakes. But, maybe it was not all his fault for the problems that the country had that he led. Soeharto was meritorious for The Indonesian Republic country.

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As a president, he was serious to control his country. At his first years as a president, Indonesia was at crisis at that time, inflation was so high, people didn’t have a job, the country was in famine, and the education was very low. The first thing that had to be settled was the food problem. To endure the situation his first action was to improve the agriculture sector. The idea was to raise the food production and to employ many people to work at agriculture sector. And then he endured the clothing problem, he built many textile factories. Also the housing problem was put to attention. He also put attention to education. He wanted to erase illiteracy, so he opened free school. He set a goal called the “PELITA”, the program was every five years. So he knew what to do for five years later. It’s the vision to achieve his mission.

As a leader he was a good leader. He picked his minister, the right man in the right place. In the early years of his presidency, Soeharto called economic experts to listen about economic development. He was eager to learn how to lead the country into a better place. So the economic experts lectured Soeharto every night until he thought it's enough knowledge about economy.

His priority was for his people. He was very consistent and resolute with his decisions. People were fighting against his decisions, but he still kept doing it if it was right for the country. He was willing to listen to his minister and spokesperson.

Soeharto was a hard worker. Every day after his ministers finished their works, he checked all the reports that his ministers had done. Until very late he was still checking the reports. On the next morning all his ministers’ reports have been checked. The reports were full with Soeharto’s writing, underlining and comments about the contents of the reports. The people who were working for him very pleased to work for him.

As a human Soeharto was a very good man. He loved to smile. He was friendly to people. He was very calm. Soeharto was a Javanese traditional man. Usually a Javanese traditional man could not express his emotion. He could not show his anger, nervousness or sadness to the people who were working for him. Soeharto could not express his emotion because he wanted people to feel what he felt.

As a father, Soeharto loved his six children so much that he gave anything for his children. As a husband, Soeharto was always loyal to his wife and never cheated on her. His inspiration was his wife. His wife was always there for him whenever he was down.

Deep inside him, actually Soeharto was really kind and wanted to make his country better. That is why Soeharto is my hero. And he was the man who inspired me.