http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2114&Itemid=175
Indonesia's New Cabinet Lineup
Written by Our Correspondent
Friday, 23 October 2009
Some pluses, some minuses disappoint reformers who expected more
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's new 37-member cabinet -
if you include three state officials of cabinet rank - which was sworn in
Wednesday can probably be viewed as a marginal upgrade from the one that left
office in terms of professionalism and openness.
The appointments disappointed reformers, who had expected more
professionals in the wake of Yudhoyono's 60.9 percent victory in the July
national election, given his supposed credentials as a reformer. Among the 34
cabinet members are 19 political appointees.
Islamist parties that had supported Yudhoyono's presidential candidacy
were rewarded, seemingly out of proportion to their influence, particularly the
Prosperous Justice Party, which was given four posts -- the Information and
Communication, Research and Technology, Agriculture and Social Services
ministries. The United Development Party was rewarded with the Religious
Affairs Ministry and the State Ministry for Public Housing. The Ulema National
Awakening Party of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, which got only 1.5
percent of the vote in legislative elections and no seats in the house,
nonetheless, received two cabinet appointments - the State Ministry for
Acceleration of Development in Underdeveloped Regions and the Ministry of Labor
and Transmigration.
Three more are from the scandal-scarred Golkar, which joined the ruling
coalition just in the last few days, pushed via adroit moves by Aburizal
Bakrie, one of Indonesia's richest men and the new head of the party, which was
viewed as deeply corrupt and which gave former strongman Suharto a thin facade
of democracy during his 33 years in political power.
The Bakrie group of companies have never been far from power, going back
to the days when Achmad Bakrie, the patriarch, benefited from government
programs to develop indigenous businesses. The group continued to grow from
government contracts and monopolies in the oil, electricity and media sectors,
according the website Asean Affairs. During the 1997-1998 Asian crisis,
Bakrie's Bank Nusa was saved by a government fund injection of US$240 million.
He was saved again by government inaction in October of 2008 in the global
financial crisis when Bakrie companies' financial manipulation led to the
closure of the Indonesian stock market. Despite demands by minority
stockholders, the Indonesian market watchdogs took no action.
As head of Golkar, Bakrie is expected to have deep tentacles into the
government, including through Agung Laksono, former speaker of the house and
Golkar vice chairman, who replaces Bakrie as Coordinating Minister for People's
Welfare. Laksono was the founder of Adam Air, a now-defunct startup airline
with a dreadful safety record including a crash in January 2007 that resulted
in the deaths of 102 passengers and contributed to the two-year ban on all
Indonesian airlines from European airspace.
The other Golkar ministers are Mohamad Sulaeman Hidayat as Industry
Minister, the former chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (Kadin). He replaces Fahmi Idris. Fadel Muhammad was named the
minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.
Businessman Taufik Kiemas, the husband of former President Megawati
Sukarnoputri, failed to win any cabinet posts for the Democratic Party of
Struggle, or PDI-P, the second-biggest after Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.
Taufik's attempts to maneuver the PDI-P into the ruling coalition were thwarted
by Megawati, who preferred to stay in opposition. Democratic Party support
however, did help Taufik win the chairmanship of the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR), the largely ceremonial upper house of the legislature.
Perhaps the biggest plus in the new administration is Yudhoyono's vice
president, Boediono, the respected former central bank governor, who has a
strong reputation for honesty and competence, and who replaces Jusuf Kalla,
whose connections to the business community through the Indonesian Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, or Kadin, created conflicts of interest. Boediono,
appointed by Megawati as Minister of Finance when she was president, played a
major role in revamping the economy so that it grew by 4 percent in 2002 and
set the stage for its continuing development.
Yudhoyono has brought back 10 officials from his previous cabinet, most
conspicuously his economics team, now headed by Hatta Radjasa, the former state
secretary, who becomes coordinating minister for the economy, a job formerly
held by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who was performing both jobs.
The appointment of Radjasa, a mining engineer, has been criticized because he
is not an economist. He was, however, one of Yudhoyono's most aides and can be
expected to play a vital role in communicating economic policy to the
president.
Sri Mulyani is a former executive director with the International
Monetary Fund who has won international acclaim for her economic policies.
During the previous administration, she waged intensive campaigns to keep the
government from bailing out the capsizing Bakrie companies in 2008.
Also returning is Mari Elka Pangestu, another internationally prominent
economist, who continues as minister of trade, and who formed a bulwark in the
previous administration against attempts by the former Industry Minister, Fahmi
Idris, to introduce measures to protect Indonesian industries such as shoe
manufacturers.
Another major advance is the selection of Gita Wirjawan, former country
head of JP Morgan Indonesia who later formed his own investment company, Ancora
Capital. He was selected head of the National Investment Coordinating Board, a
non-ministerial position but a vital one nonetheless. He has publicly vowed to
clean up Indonesia's private equity sector. A master's degree graduate of the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, he is considered one of Indonesia's
brightest young stars.
Endang Rahayu Sedya-ningsih, a general practitioner educated in the
United States, was named health minister, replacing Siti Fadilah Supari, a
loose cannon who was dumped because of some views that could only be described
as bizarre, including accusing the US in 2008 of leading an international
conspiracy to develop the avian influenza virus into a deadly bio-weapon. A
cardiologist, Supari also said she suspected that the H1N1 strain of swine flu
might have been man-made and that it couldn't survive in tropical countries
although it is believed to have killed more than 150 people in Mexico. She
demoted her replacement, Siti, for giving bird flu virus samples to US disease
control researchers and refused to share all but a small handful of Indonesian
virus samples to the World Health Organization.
Marty Muliana Natalegawa, a seasoned diplomat who most recently served as
Indonesia's permanent representative to the United Nations and previously as
ambassador to the United Kingdom, replaces Hassan Wirajuda, also a seasoned
diplomat who took on Burma for the dictatorship's treatment of the Rohingya,
hundreds of whom had to flee the country and
Purnomo Yusgiantoro, who did a lackluster job as energy and natural
resources minister, becomes Defense Minister, which has been a traditional
receptacle for lucrative commissions from arms peddlers. Under his reign as
energy minister, Indonesia fell far behind on its commitments to vastly
increase energy output. Its so-called Fast-Track energy program, which is
mainly made up of coal-fired plants, is at least two years behind schedule and
saddled with problems.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
