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The saddest thing about the implosion of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's scandal-ravaged Democrat Party is the way it has seriously damaged two of its youngest leaders - chairman Anas Urbaningrum and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng.

For them, there may be no way back.

Urbaningrum, a 42-year-old East Java political science graduate is unique. In a country where 54 percent of the population is under 30 and new-generation figures are paradoxically in short supply, he is the youngest politician to have headed a major political party.

By crushing Mallarangeng, Yudhoyono's preferred candidate, in a head-to-head vote last year, the party-savvy Urbaningrum offered at least a glimmer of hope that Indonesia's political guard may be changing as the country enters a second decade of democratic rule.

But only a glimmer. Unless someone appears out of the woodwork in the coming year, the field for the 2014 presidential race is likely to be filled by many of the same familiar faces.

Voters will have to look to 2019 for any significant generational change - and there is also no guarantee that those who do emerge are untainted by the avarice and shady fund-raising that has become such a feature of Indonesia's political life.

For many of Jakarta's reform-minded elite, the dream candidate for 2014 would be Sri Mulyani Indrawati, 48, the feisty former finance minister who was forced out of the Cabinet last year. Sadly, that's all it is at the moment - a dream.

Sri Mulyani will not say publicly what she has in her future, telling me in a recent message that she is enjoying her high-paying job as managing director of the World Bank, but declining to comment on that one leading question: is she really, really considering a run.

She has told some of her friends in private that she is a non-starter, so why the reluctance to say so publicly? Perhaps because she does not want to disappoint her legion of admirers - or leave them with the feeling that it will still not be possible in 2019, when she will still be only 57.

Only recently, Yudhoyono had Sri Mulyani's name added to a list of possible Democrat Party candidates - which is almost bizarre, considering it was his failure to protect her from Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie and his old-guard cohorts that led to her resignation.

Sri Mulyani is a lot more political than she appears, but while a Democrat leader has described her as a "national asset" - albeit an unappreciated one - she is still a somewhat divisive figure and not that well known among grassroots voters.

One thing is for sure: she can't run from Washington. If she does have her eye on 2019, that would mean leaving her World Bank job two or three years beforehand and then finding the vehicle and the backers to support her campaign. It will not be easy.

Charismatic Paramadina University rector Anies Baswedan, himself touted as a future president, feels it takes too long for young politicians to rise through the ranks of parties, many of which are dominated by oligarchs and other vested interests.

Better, he says, that they develop their own visibility, using television as the primary vehicle, with the understanding that the simple mobile phone and social media are becoming ever-more-important tools in reaching out to citizens.

"Visibility is key to helping new leaders emerge," he explains. "But you also have to be likeable and to have your own ideas. When the message is about 'me', then it's not going to happen."

Take the telegenic  Mallarangeng, who, as presidential spokesman, was well-placed to make his mark. Being non-Javanese is still clearly a handicap, but for all his appearances on television he has failed to do the necessary party work or to develop the sort of ideas expected of a prospective leader.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment has been his performance as Sports Minister. Instead of grabbing the role of mediator in both hands, he stood idly by as the conflict roiling the Football Association of Indonesia spun out of control.

And now he has been tainted by the storm over disgraced Democrat treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin, another young political aspirant, who was recently indicted in a corruption case surrounding the construction of a dormitory for the 2011 Southeast Asia Games.

As  Baswedan points out, the murky way parties feel compelled to make money, even to meet monthly administrative costs, is one key reason why younger people are deterred from a political career.

With 47.7 percent of lawmakers holding undergraduate degrees and another 42.7 percent with graduate or doctoral degrees, voters had clearly hoped that electing younger and more idealistic politicians would transform parties and create a better-quality Parliament.

It doesn't seem to be happening. Indeed, House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie, himself a Democrat, caused an outcry last month when he said 70 percent of the legislators in the 560-strong chamber had little understanding of their duties. If that is a fair evaluation - and the Speaker has proved himself to be as controversial as anyone else in recent months - parties have a long way to go before they become a gene pool for Indonesia's future leaders.


Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 021 2553 5055.