Preparing for Cabinet II: No need for coalitions

Preparing for Cabinet II: No need for coalitions

James Van Zorge, Jakarta

Speculation and rumors about a new cabinet -- who is in and
who is out -- has become the favored topic during Jakarta's
evening Ramadhan meal. Already, incumbents and aspiring players
are busy slinging mud at their opponents while posturing, cutting
backroom deals, and building alliances.

In the minds of spectators and participants, the mostly likely
victors in this game of high-stakes political poker are those
players who can sell themselves at the expense of their
competitors. It will be wise for them to position themselves near
those who have Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's ear and can make a
difference in helping him choose a new cabinet.

While this makes for interesting news copy, all of the energy
being spent by ministerial aspirants may be for naught. Insiders
are saying that Susilo has started to evaluate the performance of
his ministers and weigh his options on a new cabinet. Susilo also
is reportedly trying his best to insulate himself from the
jockeying crowd by spending less time in the Palace and more time
in the privacy of his residence.

And so it should be. Susilo is well-advised to surround
himself with people that he can trust and are able to provide him
with good intelligence and advice on cabinet appointments.

Above all, Susilo should be able to utilize his inner-circle's
collective wisdom to select a cabinet that is, first of all, seen
as a significant improvement over the current team and, second,
as a team that he can call his own. Susilo's evaluations of the
current team should be based, foremost, on performance, integrity
and loyalty. On this score, we would hope that he will use the
highest standards.

As a performance metric, Susilo should pose the question of
whether or not a minister has made a substantial contribution
toward improving the public services within his portfolio. This
means not only making the right decisions for the sake of the
public interest but also being able to finesse bureaucratic
politics. This ensures that once a decision is made, it gets done
properly and is not sabotaged by unwilling actors, while going
forward without unnecessary delays.

In a word, to be smart is not enough -- a high performer in
government should also possess a keen sense of responsibility
toward the public and know how to navigate the choppy
bureaucratic waters.

Then there is the issue of integrity. Here, it is not only a
question of not having been a subject of investigations or legal
proceedings involving a criminal activity. In previous
administrations, there have been many government officials who
were widely acknowledged as being crooks yet, at the same time,
managed to keep their jobs and themselves out of court.

The arms of justice may be crippled, but rarely in public life
can skeletons be hidden in the closet for long. Like in any other
capital city, Jakarta's political cognoscenti know a lot about
reputations, and it is this intelligence that the President
should pay attention to for weeding out those with tarnished
reputations. To do otherwise will, ultimately, hurt his
reputation before the public.

Finally, the President must ask himself, has his team been
loyal?

Because the current cabinet consists of a loose coalition of
individuals tied to various political parties, it should come as
no surprise if the so-called Unity Cabinet has been subject to
competing interests and hence, a lack of loyalty to the
President.

There will always be those that argue because Susilo comes
from a small party he has no other choice than to work with a
coalition cabinet. We would vehemently argue that such thinking
is flawed, and closer inspection of the facts suggests otherwise.

In the first instance, party leaders who are demanding
ministerial titles for their favored sons and daughters should be
brought to the table and asked, what benefits have coalition
politics brought to the Palace so far?

Some might argue that a coalition cabinet buys party
allegiance in the national parliament. Our analysis reveals,
however, that this is far from the truth. Under the current
coalition cabinet, scant legislation has been passed by the DPR.
An exception would be Golkar's acquiescence to having fuel
subsidies lifted.

But besides acting in a time of crisis that was clearly in the
national interest, what else has Susilo's majority coalition
partner been doing to advance the President's agenda for reform?
For that matter, what have other parties that obtained
ministerial posts been doing inside the DPR to prove their
allegiance to the so-called coalition?

Still others argue that Susilo needs to pay patronage to
political parties in order to secure support for the 2009
elections. Again, the facts suggest otherwise. Party leaders seem
to have conveniently forgotten that Susilo handsomely won the
2004 elections despite having not played coalition politics.

Many voters, without any prompting by their party's
leadership, decided to cross party lines and vote for Susilo
because they felt he was the best candidate. If Susilo performs
well during the remaining years of his tenure in office, why
should we believe that voters would act any differently?

What matters most is that in this presidential system
coalition politics are a luxury and not a necessity as in
European parliamentary democracies. Susilo has already given
political parties outside his own the party the chance to prove
themselves -- if they have failed, why should he feel compelled
to give them another chance? Moreover, why should he compromise
the quality of his cabinet for the sake of a ritual that makes no
political sense?

As they make their demands for continued patronage, what the
parties should be reminded of is that it was not they who put
Susilo into the Palace. Rather, it was the electorate; the final
test for Susilo, in their minds, is whether or not his
administration will perform on promises of an improved economy.
More likely than not, Susilo's ability to deliver on prosperity
will depend on having a highly capable team that is committed to
his platform of prosperity and reform -- and nothing else.

The writer is a senior partner of Van Zorge, Heffernan &
Associates, a government relations consulting firm based in
Jakarta. He can be reached at jvzorge@rad.net.id.