Indonesia’s new cabinet; male, stale and whale-sized

Prabowo Subianto’s “fat” cabinet aims to eliminate all parliamentary opposition and reward all those who backed his third-time lucky presidential race.

Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto (front row centre) and Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka on his left pose with newly sworn-in cabinet ministers in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. Picture: Bay Ismoyo / AFP

Prabowo Subianto has unveiled Indonesia’s biggest government since the 1960s – 108 ministers, deputies and agency chiefs across 52 portfolios.

Questions have now been raised over the cost-effectiveness of such a bloated administration given the new President’s expensive first-term agenda.

Prabowo announced his “fat” maiden cabinet hours after his swearing-in on Sunday as Indonesia’s eighth president, a line-up designed to pull almost every parliamentary party and interest group into an umbrella government that will eliminate political opposition.

Only the former ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of ­Struggle (P-DIP) remains outside the Prabowo tent, though the party of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri has indicated it will support the government’s agenda in parliament.

At almost twice the size of predecessor Joko Widodo’s final government line-up, thanks to no less than 56 deputy ministers, the new administration incorporates 15 senior figures from the outgoing Jokowi cabinet including well-­regarded finance and health ministers Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

Prabowo’s good friend and former military colleague Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin succeeds him in the defence portfolio while his Gerindra party deputy chairman Sugiono, another retired military officer, is Indonesia’s new foreign minister (with three deputies).

Prabowo’s nephew Thomas Djiwandono is one of three deputy finance ministers.

AsiaLink Business Advisory and Insights director Robert Law said while Mulyani’s inclusion would cheer the market, she faced a “tough battle to limit rent-seeking and manage a budget that will come under pressure from Prabowo’s big spending agenda”.

Indonesia’s President won office on a suite of expensive election pledges, including a $US30bn free school lunch program, record defence budget, and a commitment to complete Jokowi’s $US32bn legacy new capital city in Borneo.

In his inauguration speech on Sunday, Prabowo also vowed to address rampant corruption and achieve food and energy security within his first five-year term.

Analysts say those undertakings will be all but impossible to achieve with such an unwieldy government.

“I don’t know how effective this new bloated ministry will be because these vice-ministry posts are only as good as the minister allows them to be. I’m pretty sure most of them will have nothing to do,” Kennedy Muslim, a senior analyst with Indonesia’s Indikator Politik pollsters, told The Australian. “Prabowo will have a hard time dealing with the cost of ballooning ministries because the budget stays the same regardless.”

Lowy Institute Southeast Asia program research fellow Rahman Yaacob said there was deep public sector concern over how the new ministries would be funded, and the drag effect they would have on effective governance.

Each new minister would require cars, offices and staff, while all would be competing to make their mark and survive an inevitable post-honeymoon reshuffle.

The jumbo government was made possible only by an amendment signed into law last week by Jokowi removing a government ceiling of 34 ministers, so it comes as no surprise.

Prabowo has for months flagged his preference for a “polite democracy” in which parliamentary opposition is effectively eliminated by a grand coalition.

“I want to create a strong government that would unite our multicultural society and diverse political interests,” he said last week before hosting more than 100 ministerial candidates at a retreat at his residence.

“It must be a big coalition, and some will say my cabinet is fat.”

Yet for all his attempts to distribute political favours across constituencies, the size of the new President’s cabinet is not the only thing harking back to the 1960s, given the extent to which it overlooks half the population.

Just 14 women were awarded posts in the country’s 108-strong government – all but five of them in deputy minister posts.

Nursyabhani Katjasungkana, a Jakarta-based lawyer, former MP and activist for greater female political representation, said the cabinet line-up had ignored “brilliant” potential women candidates to appease different interest groups.

“If you look at it, it’s about how many positions Nahdlatul Ulama (the country’s largest Muslim organisation) gets, how many positions Muhammadiyah (the second largest Muslim group) gets, and how different political parties are represented. Professionalism seems to be secondary,” she said.

“It’s frustrating to see so many competent women overlooked, including even party loyalists from (Prabowo‘s) Gerindra Party who were not considered at all for cabinet positions.”