What kind of Cabinet?
Now that we have a new president and vice president, the focus of the ongoing power struggle is shifting to the lineup of the new Cabinet. President Megawati Soekarnoputri may have the constitutional prerogative in forming the new Cabinet, but political reality dictates that she must include people from other political parties as well as her own.
Her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) still has the most votes in the highly fractured House of Representatives but, with only 35 percent of the seats, that is hardly sufficient to secure her legislative agenda. Like her predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati has to either form a coalition Cabinet with one or more factions in the House to ensure a controlling majority, or form a national Cabinet.
It now looks like Megawati is going for the latter arrangement. It is no secret that her party has been discussing the structure of the new Cabinet with four other major political parties. Talks are already underway between the political parties, each trying to grab a larger piece of the pie.
This may confirm cynics' suspicions that this process of bringing Abdurrahman down has really been about power-grabbing among the nation's political elite. But politics is always about power and this country's political personality is no exception.
Nevertheless, the fact that the Cabinet's composition will be the result of political horsetrading has spooked many who fear that the new administration will be run by a bunch of politicians.
This takes us back to the perennial debate about the Cabinet composition most appropriate and desirable for Indonesia, and to the question of whether it should be filled with professionals or politicians.
At the moment, the argument for a Cabinet comprised of more professionals seems to have the upper hand. Given the quality of most of our politicians, this concern is valid.
We have had an unhappy, albeit brief, experience with an administration run by politicians during Abdurrahman's first Cabinet. The ministers could not shed their political jackets and continued to demonstrate a loyalty divided between the president and their party bosses. Also in such a rainbow Cabinet, the presence of ministers of different political affiliations often undermined the unity of the administration.
But those who dismiss the workability of a Cabinet filled with politicians tend to have a short memory, because the nation has also had a long and unhappy experience with a bunch of ministers recruited because of their professional expertise.
These "technocrats" may have had the professional competence and even the necessary administrative and leadership skills, but many lacked the sense of accountability to the people which elected politicians have developed. Because they were not elected, they owed their position, and hence allegiance, solely to the president. Most ended up being the president's "yes men" and either turned a blind to abuses and corruption, or became involved in these practices themselves.
In Soeharto's years, these technocrats, including those who ran the economy for over three decades, would hide behind the president through their now famous phrase "Bapak said this ... Bapak said that". They not only felt that they were not accountable to the people, but they also refused to take political responsibility for their failures.
If Megawati also goes for professionals, don't be surprised to hear the phrase "Ibu said this ... Ibu said that" every night on our televisions.
There are no hard and fast rules determining what kind of people should run the Cabinet. At the end of the day, it is not really the professional competence or the sense of accountability that should become the primary criteria.
Going by this nation's previous experience, what Indonesia needs today is not a Cabinet of professionals or politicians, but a Cabinet with a conscience. The question is: do we really have that many people, among our politicians and professionals, who truly possess the conscience to work as servants of the people as well as the President?