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.