The Presidents

It is commonly known that "the world's most exclusive club" will soon add another "George Bush" to its list, therefore increasing the total membership into four. It is less commonly known that the club of living ex Indonesian presidents actually have less member (three) and therefore arguably more exclusive.
It is possible that this is due to the stature of the two clubs being markedly different.Bill Clinton set up a foundation to fight obesity, AIDS in africa and climate change. Jimmy Carter also set up a foundation, won a Nobel Peace prize in the process but remained a thorn in the side of his successors - on issues like North Korea and lately, the Middle East. On the other side of the world, an ex Indonesian president also set a foundation and also visited S. Korea at the request of the S. Korean presideny, to 'wage peace' in the Korean peninsula.
Whilst it will be a long time before Indonesia will have her own "41st" and "43rd" father and son presidents (George Bush and, er, George Bush), presidential politics in Indonesia have already been a family affair. Indonesia already have father and daughter presidents (Indonesia's 5th president, Megawati, is the daughter of the first, Soekarno). Megawati has already been nominated as her party's nominee for next year's election (she failed to win a second term in 2004 and was not elected for her "first" term).
Whilst waiting for elections, it is not uniformly common what Indonesian ex presidents do. President Habibie has wrote a book (2006), polishing his Mercedes classic cars collection in Hamburg and met with incumbent President Yudhoyono on June 13th. President Wahid , or Gus Dur as he is more commonly known, has kept his "Presiden Republic Indonesia" hat despite being thrown out by parliament, and has also fought for religious freedoms ( a very noble clause). President Megawati, who served as president Wahid's vice-president has made some eyebrow raising visits to South and North Korea.
Until his death in January of 2008, president Soeharto spent his days cocooned in his Jakarta home before finally succumbing to ill health.
Could and Should they do more in their "sparetime" ? The first question will be answered "maybe" and the second will be answered "yes".

More in the next posting