Future cabinet ministers 'must be professionals'
JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto's former close aide, Rudini, said yesterday that only professional ministers should be included in the 1998/2003 cabinet lineup.
He declined to say whether members of the current cabinet were not professional, but said skillful and knowledgeable ministers would be able to produce good and achievable policies.
In a simple gathering to mark his 68th birthday, Rudini also called on the next president to appoint ministers who were independent and would not be a political burden.
"The elected president should, therefore, modify the existing criteria for cabinet ministers and place professionalism as a more important reason (for appointment) than political motives," said Rudini, who was minister of home affairs in the 1988/1993 cabinet.
Political observer Arbi Sanit told The Jakarta Post that several cabinet ministers have been less than professional.
"A number of cabinet members have in fact only been training on how to become ministers. They failed their tests," he said, naming several ministers who over the past five years were embroiled in controversy.
Arbi said the elected president could ask for advice from former cabinet ministers when screening candidates for his cabinet lineup.
Rudini and Arbi were responding to a recent political statement from Golkar's labor wing, SOKSI, that the future ministers of the 1998/2003 cabinet should avoid becoming a "political burden" for President Soeharto.
The organization did not say, however, whether there were ministers in the current cabinet it considered a political burden to the President.
Rudini, currently chairman of an informal military think tank, the Institute for Strategic Studies of Indonesia (LPSI), said placing less emphasis on political reasons for ministerial selection would not necessarily reduce the appointed people's loyalty toward the president.
"It'll be impossible for a professional cabinet minister to act against the state ideology Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution," he said.
Article 17 of the 1945 Constitution stipulates that the president has the authority to appoint and dismiss cabinet ministers.
Health
Rudini also commented on the monetary crisis and rumors about President Soeharto's ailing health.
Rudini called on the current cabinet ministers to remain united and cooperate to help the economy recover.
"Cabinet ministers should not play their individual political games and seek their own safety," he said.
"And they must remember that as cabinet ministers, they must remain faithful to the President and not have different political views from one another."
Referring to ways to regain economic stability in the country, Arbi suggested that the next president reemploy senior ministers, including former coordinating minister for the economy and finance Widjojo Nitisastro and former minister of finance Frans Seda, for the 1998/2003 cabinet.
"We should temporarily set aside the regeneration plan to introduce younger ministers," he said. "The only chance that the country now has is to employ experienced and professional ministers to be in the cabinet lineup."
Political observer Afan Gaffar of Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, suggested yesterday that the government conduct a massive political and economic reform in the country.
"The government should stop the spreading of malicious rumors, which have been premeditatedly launched, by introducing political and economic reforms and avoid making elementary mistakes," he said. (imn/har)