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View all search resultsJokowi mulls his own 'West Wing'
In a bid to enhance the power of the presidential office, president-elect Joko âJokowiâ Widodo is considering altering its structure
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n a bid to enhance the power of the presidential office, president-elect Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo is considering altering its structure.
Wandy Tuturoong, a member of Jokowi's transition team, said on Wednesday that the restructuring of the office would bestow greater authority and monitoring power on the president by unifying all the aspects of governance into a single office directly under him.
'The change is more about how to strengthen the president's influence over his ministers. Right now, the president's image is weak [compared to the Cabinet and the House of Representatives], but with this change, the president would be stronger,' he said.
For instance, Jokowi would have greater authority to formulate laws, Wandy said.
'The initiative [for a law] would come from the president, not from the ministries. They are the president's helpers, after all,' he said, adding that granting greater authority to the president was aimed at preventing the Cabinet from introducing laws that undermined people's welfare.
In order to achieve these aims, the transition team has proposed that Jokowi set up a special unit in the presidential office to design policies and draft regulations.
'After formulating new policies or regulations, staff in the special unit would present their ideas to the president and, if approved, they would then coordinate with the relevant ministries,' Wandy said.
'The ministers are the ones who will fight [for new laws] at the House and implement them.'
A key problem with the current government, according to Wandy, lay in the fragmented nature of the Cabinet.
'The [34] ministries have all been established separately, so each one tends to focus primarily on its own interests,' he said.
Another problem was the lack of high-quality human resources within the presidential office, Wandy said.
- Transition team has proposed a restructuring of presidential office
- The move would bestow greater authority and supervisory power on Jokowi
- The plan is to set up a special unit to design policies, regulations
'There are many staff, but most of them work in administration,' he said, adding that the proposed special unit would employ more experts to produce good-quality policies and regulations.
'I've met a lot of foreign researchers who say that Indonesia is stable but also stagnant due to a lack of quality legislation. In the future, we want not only a stable economy, but also more pro-people policies.'
Wandy also said that besides establishing the new unit, Jokowi may also choose to bring together related government institutions within the presidential office.
He cited as an example the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4) and the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas).
In this way, the presidential office would possess direct authority to introduce policies, handle state administrative affairs, implement development plans, determine budgetary plans and control the Cabinet.
Commenting on the proposed plan, the executive director of the Institute for Transformation Studies (Intrans), Saiful Haq, said on Thursday that he liked the plan noting that, if implemented, it would result in Indonesia's presidential office resembling the US'.
'The problem here is how the presidential office is restricted [in its authority], unlike in the US where the president enters the White House along with his expert staffers in the West Wing. In Indonesia, a new president enters office alone and finds himself surrounded by bureaucrats,' Saiful said.
