Endy M. Bayuni and Kornelius Purba, Jakarta | Sat, 08/01/2009 2:18 PM
If president-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wants to make an impact when choosing the Cabinet for his second five-year term beginning in October, how about naming an all-female team.
Why not?
Considering everybody else seems to have drawn up their Cabinet lists (more like their wish list) and disseminated them on the Internet, we have made one of prominent women we feel are capable of doing the job as well, if not better, than their male counterparts.
Naming the Cabinet, or really guessing it, is the number one game in town at the moment and will remain so until Yudhoyono announces his team, which will most likely happen following the Oct. 20 inauguration. Between now and then, many people will be jockeying for positions, and their supporters and sponsors will be pushing their names in seminars, conferences, TV talkshows, press commentaries, Facebook and what-have-you.
Some of the most frequently asked questions have centered around the mix of Cabinet representatives, such as between professionals and politicians, between Javanese and non-Javanese, military versus civilians and Muslims and non-Muslims.
Then, there is the gender divide. The question most often asked is how many women ministers do people think Yudhoyono will pick? Will it be four? Five? Almost definitely it will not exceed six, which would be a record for Indonesia.
The prevailing attitude when it comes to gender is that it is almost certain women ministers will be treated as an afterthought in order to fulfill the minimum requirement. Although women make up more than 50 percent of the nation's population, in politics they are still treated as a minority group like non-Muslims or non-Javanese.
Take Yudhoyono's election in 2004. The health minister's position was one of the last to be filled, and according to insider information, Yudhoyono wanted a woman to boost their overall representation in the Cabinet to four. Since he still owed another seat to one of the supporting parties in his coalition, he asked the party chairman to give him the name of a female doctor. Hence Dr. Siti Fadilah Soepari.
This is not to say that the female ministers in Yudhoyono's first term did not do their job well. Sri Muljani Indrawati and Mari Elka Pangestu, the ministers of finance and trade respectively, have outperformed their male counterparts in the Cabinet when it comes to delivering the goods (which explains why their names remain on our list).
The brilliant performance of Sri Mulyani and Mari Pangestu should be enough of a reason for Yudhoyono to consider naming an all-female Cabinet, or at least choose a significantly larger number of women for his next team.
Yudhoyono has already shown that he can be as progressive as anyone when it comes to gender issues. In the April legislative elections, his Democratic Party put at least 36 women in the House of Representatives. In a recent dinner with journalists, he proudly pointed out that the Democratic Party had the highest number of female legislators.
How about extending this trend and going one step further by promoting gender equality in his own Cabinet?
He cannot hide behind the excuse that there are not enough suitable women to fill the Cabinet posts.
Indonesia today has many women leaders in all walks of life who have proven they can be as tough and capable in domains traditionally held by men, such as in politics, the bureaucracy, business and civil society, as the next man.
The list we have drawn up here shows that if Yudhoyono seriously wanted to, he could easily fill his Cabinet exclusively with capable women.
The more serious question that he needs to answer is whether he would feel comfortable being surrounded by women ministers at Cabinet meetings, and, of no less importance, whether the First Lady would approve. That will be his call more than anybody else.
We have picked these names based on their expertise, track records and on how they rose to prominence through their respective fields.
Still not convinced? Go to the list of the 100 most powerful women in Indonesia and other similar lists that have been published in the past few years. We have more women capable of filling the Cabinet positions twice over.
Gender is a worthy point of discussion surrounding the Cabinet selection because women have been so grossly underrepresented in the past. That should not be the case anymore, and Yudhoyono can take a stand. If Yudhoyono heeds this advice then people will be wondering how many men, not women, will be present in the next Cabinet.
The attached list is intended more as an academic exercise, and not one of those attempts to influence the president-elect who is now preparing to build his new team. We apologize to those on the list who are not comfortable being named in the context of this article. To those women in powerful positions whose names aren't listed, we also apologize in advance for this oversight.
There is just too many of you out there to jot down at once.
Got any comment on female ministers? Got any names in mind? Tell us what you think by emailing readersforum@thejakartapost.com or by SMS to +62 811 187 2772.
