Megawati's Cabinet, the best since Soeharto?

After trying to make everyone happy, a further test for President Megawati Soekarnoputri will be in facing various demands from political parties, writes political analyst J. Soedjati Djiwandono.

JAKARTA (JP): After a rather unusually long wait, President Megawati Soekarnoputri has finally announced her new Cabinet. The people seem to have got what they were waiting for. In some respects it seems to be the best Cabinet lineup since the reform era started. It has been worth waiting that long.

In the first place, the President seems to have indicated her courage and determination not to be too dependent on the support of other political parties. She has relied more on professionals, retired military officers and her own party members -- most of whom are professionals themselves -- for key, strategic posts, with very few members of other political parties in less-than- strategic positions. This is likely to ensure better coordination, and greater attention to more urgent problems.

Above all, the economics team is the Cabinet's strongest point. Headed by Coordinating Minister Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-jakti, former envoy to Washington and an astute professor of economics at the University of Indonesia, he holds views that, as I know them, will ensure better relations and cooperation with the West, including international institutions, particularly the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Consultative Group on Indonesia, as well as western nations in general.

Accompanied by Dr. Boediono as minister of finance, a good longtime professor of economics at Gadjah Mada University, a man of modesty and integrity to boot, the economics team will be an asset for the restoration of the nation's credibility in the eyes of the international community. This will be an important factor for the nation's economic recovery.

To be sure, the restoration of peace and stability, national as well as regional, is a prerequisite for economic recovery that will induce foreign as well as domestic investments. This problem, however, seems to be in the hands of an experienced team of political and security ministers (such as foreign and security ministers).

Indeed, some members of political parties, particularly of the "axis force" comprising Islamic-based political parties, who had previously rejected Megawati for president because of her gender, and hence the election of Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, may think of Megawati's indebtedness to them for their recent support for her presidency to replace Gus Dur. They may therefore be somewhat disappointed with the small and less strategic seats of the Cabinet allotted to them. And thus, along with the Golkar Party, they may try in one way or another to stand in the way of President Megawati's management of the government and in carrying out her programs.

On her part, however, the President should have the guts to deal firmly with the undue demands made by the political parties in return for their political support. She should keep firmly in mind that, quite apart from their support, constitutionally she was to take over the presidency in the event of president Abdurrahman being forced out of office by the People's Consultative Assembly. She should also keep firmly in mind that she is to act as head of state and head of government in a presidential system, rather than in a parliamentary system that those political parties seem to make it out to be.

Indeed, this is the time for the newly formed Cabinet to get on the job. The time of merrymaking and festivities attended by uncouth politicians dizzy with success (in the words of Stalin) is over. It is no longer time for complacency.

The reform process should be kept on the right track. Then the presidency, for the first time held by a woman, in itself a matter of pride for the whole nation as a symbol of the culmination of women's emancipation in this country, will not be further tarnished by what had looked like sluggishness, lack of a sense of crisis and of urgency, in the pattern of the notorious Asian way.

The party is over. Get on with the job!