What kind of Cabinet?

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?