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Indonesia: Jokowi's cabinet of compromises
Sydney Morning Herald - October 27, 2014
There's the deeply unimpressive daughter of his political patron Megawati Sukarnoputri; a man with a questionable human rights record as a soldier; and at least one, it's suspected, who raised a "yellow flag" of potential corruption when their name was parsed by the country's highly effective anti-corruption commission.
Jokowi announced his first cabinet on Sunday describing it as a "Working Cabinet," but the press quickly renamed it a "cabinet of compromises". Was this the best he could do? Well, perhaps it was.
Eight of the 43 names he originally submitted were given a red flag by the anti-corruption commission or the financial transactions tracking authority. Indonesia's political, bureaucratic and judicial elite is riddled with a graft so thorough that it's considered the "old normal".
Jokowi promised he would end that, but, while most of the worst names were gone, he has clearly lost some early battles along the way.
He also promised he wouldn't run a "transactional" cabinet – that he would not trade cabinet posts for political votes in parliament. In some ways that left him with the worst of both worlds. Realpolitik forced him to choose 14 political appointees in a cabinet of 34 to keep his minority coalition together, but his minority status gave him a very limited political talent pool to choose from.
There are several specialists: bureaucrats and academics, which will please the non-government sector.
And the cabinet includes eight women, significantly outstripping Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's total of one, and they hold key portfolios such as foreign affairs, forestry, state-owned enterprises, and maritime affairs, which Jokowi has highlighted as a priority.
There is some real talent: Anies Baswedan as education minister stands out, but the academic and think tank sector in Indonesia is not very deep yet, and there was not much to choose from. Also, as Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's academic vice-president Boediono proved between 2009 and 2014, academic accomplishment does not mean the ability to actually achieve anything.
Then there are the old stagers, friends of Megawati for the most part, who in her idiosyncratic world view deserve some political favour because they are loyal to her and the legacy of her father, Sukarno. These, particularly the defence minister Ryamizard Ryacudu, are the most worrying.
As Jokowi tries to make the restive West Papua province, which still has a heavy military presence, a priority, Ryamizard will be remembered as the man who has tried to excuse the murder of Papuan activists by soldiers in the past.
He also riles sensitivities in Aceh, where he was a real hardliner during the separatist war in the early 2000s. In Aceh, separatist sentiment is stirring again and he is not the man to quell it. From all accounts he's not all that smart. In 2004, as a four-star general, Ryamizard claimed there were 60,000 foreign spies in Indonesia. His appointment means the eyes of the world will be on who gains the upper hand in cabinet on some sensitive issues: the new, relatively inexperienced foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, or the new experienced but disliked defence minister.
If, for example, the South China Sea issue starts to impact Indonesia's Natuna Islands directly, then we might see what kind of compromises Jokowi has been forced to make.
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