'Don't expect much from Cabinet'

'Don't expect much from Cabinet'

Scholars have warned the public that they should not anchor much
hope on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration, as
from the outset it has shown signs of incompetence.

In their year-end assessment of political, economic and social
affairs for 2004, researchers of the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences (LIPI) said, to date, the new administration's
performance had been unimpressive and, moreover, it appeared to
be at a loss as to what to do next.

Syamsuddin Haris of LIPI's center for political research said
that, although the administration had been handed political
legitimacy, it failed to grasp what the public actually desired
and, so far, could not come up with a tangible program, nor
targets that it could work on for the next five years.

"Instead, we get the impression that each minister works
within their own framework, by drawing up programs relevant only
to their own field of work," Syamsuddin said on Thursday.

LIPI is a government think tank, but has always been critical
of government policies.

He said that, as a result of such blinkered vision, the
Cabinet had spent its first few months in office engaged in
efforts to recognize and identify the country's problems.

"In his first speech, Susilo said his Cabinet was still
studying the country's problems. This is a setback. As part of
the previous administrations of Megawati Soekarnoputri and
Abdurrahman Wahid, he should have grasped the problems earlier,"
Syamsuddin said.

He also said that in the anticorruption drive, which tops the
new administration's priorities, the President was only good at
making promises.

"We barely see a focused, measured and integrated approach in
the fight against corruption. The drive has been limited to
rhetoric and ritual," he said, adding that the only tangible
effort was the publication of state officials' wealth reports.

He said that if the President had failed to gain momentum in
his first three months in office, that would reflect poorly on
his chances of success later on.

And, "If he fails, then the House of Representatives, the
Nationhood Coalition in particular, will have enough ammunition
to attack him," Syamsuddin warned, adding that the first strike
would probably be launched soon after the government hiked the
price of fuel early next year.

Widjaya Adi of the institute's economic studies division
shared similar concerns, saying that coordination was the
Cabinet's Achilles heel.

"Coordination between ministers is poor. We were shown the
proof when one minister decided to raise the tax for the business
community but another minister said it should be lowered. That is
not a promising sign," he said.

Widjaya also said the so-called shock therapy that the
government had initiated early on would not last long, and was
only carried out to meet short-term goals.

"I am not sure that it will prevail after three months," he
said.