President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono broke convention when he selected his Cabinet by subjecting all candidates to a media spectacle rather than speaking to them privately as has been the practice in the past.
What supporters hailed as a more transparent way of picking his most trusted aides for his second term in office turned into a circus, and one that crushed the heart of a woman who got rejected - the only one among the pack - after all the media hype.
It was certainly a system that gave a high degree of predictability. When the President announced the lineup of his United Indonesia Cabinet II on Wednesday night, all but one of the 34 appointments was precisely as had been widely predicted by the media.
The media diligently reported on each and every candidate who turned up at Yudhoyono's residence in Cikeas, outside Jakarta, for the interviews on Saturday and Sunday. Courtesy of the President's protocol, each candidate was made to disclose the job offered, even though there was still the possibility they would not be selected.
The candidates went through the same rituals of media scrutiny as they visited Gatot Subroto Army Hospital in Jakarta the next day.
When the announcement came, everyone in the pack made it except Nila Djoewita Moeloek, who had been touted to become the next health minister. Instead, her place was given to Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih at the last minute.
Nila's heart was naturally broken when she heard the news, having received many congratulatory messages earlier and bouquets of flowers sent to her home from relatives and friends.
Endang, in the meantime, could not have asked for a more hostile start to her job in the Cabinet as she became the target of criticism and accusations about her background and the reasons why she got the job.
Leading these accusations was none other than Siti Fadilah Supari, the outgoing health minister, who was obviously not pleased at being passed over. It was good to see the three eventually made up in time for Endang's inauguration on Thursday.
Still, the episode left a bitter aftertaste, sparked some wild accusations, and raises doubts about whether the system was as transparent as Yudhoyono's supporters claimed it to be. That it left many unanswered questions also tells you it was far from being transparent.
One question was over his decision to drop Nila. Earlier speculation that she had failed the health test was dismissed by the hospital, which, in its defense, made it clear that any leak could not have come from the team members. For good measure, the hospital said all the candidates passed the health test, thus sending the ball back to Cikeas as the real decision for the last-minute switch.
In the absence of any credible explanation from Yudhoyono, there is now speculation that Nila was dropped because of lobbying from the powerful cigarette industry (remember they managed to have an article on cigarette restrictions mysteriously dropped from the new health law), or from the drug industry oligopoly.
Another theory being churned out by the rumor mills said Endang, given her Harvard University training background, was planted by the US government to ensure continuity of the contract for the US Navy's Namru-2 research lab in Indonesia.
In the absence of any explanation from Cikeas, these rumors will persist and could take on a life of their own to dog Endang in her first days and weeks in office.
If transparency is the objective of the exercise, the President should not only explain his last-minute switch, but also more importantly, his reasoning for apportioning 20 Cabinet seats to political parties that make up his grand coalition government.
He could explain why he has given four seats to the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and why Golkar, having challenged his presidential bid in the July election, has three Cabinet posts. He should also explain why he has given some politically strategic and sensitive posts to parties that could become his Democratic Party's rivals in 2014.
We know the answer is that this is all the result of political negotiations with the coalition partners, but still, it would be interesting to find out exactly what has he given up or promised and what is he getting in return. Now that would be real transparency.
In the past, selecting the Cabinet was a much simpler process. The elected President only had to call the candidates over the phone and offer them the job. There were occasions when people's hearts were broken too, but they were usually victims of pranks who spread the word about their imminent Cabinet appointment.
Selecting the Cabinet is the constitutional prerogative of the elected President. They do not need to explain their decision to the public. The old tried method is still better than the one we have just seen that pretends to be more transparent. It is not.
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