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Jokowi breaks tradition, tips Army chief as TNI commander
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has proposed Army chief of staff Gen
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P
resident Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has proposed Army chief of staff Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo succeed TNI Commander Gen. Moeldoko, who is slated to retire in August.
Jokowi's decision has broken an unwritten tradition forged after the 1998 reform movement that the position for Indonesian Military (TNI) commander would be rotated between the Army, Navy and Air Force to prevent one of the three factions from gaining too much power.
Moeldoko of the Army, succeeded Adm. Agus Suhartono of the Navy in 2013. The baton should have been passed to Air Force chief of staff Air Chief Marshall Agus Supriatna if Jokowi wanted to stick to tradition.
House of Representatives deputy speaker Fahri Hamzah confirmed on Tuesday that Jokowi had submitted a letter to the House seeking approval for Gatot as the next TNI commander.
"We have received the letter. Gatot Nurmantyo is the proposed candidate," said Fahri.
"Within the week, the approval process can begin," he said, adding that House Commission I for defense, foreign affairs and intelligence was slated to conduct the so-called fit and proper test on the candidate before offering approval.
Jokowi's decision to propose Gatot goes against suggestions from his party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which urged the President to maintain the tradition of rotation.
Tubagus Hasanuddin, a PDI-P lawmaker from House Commission I, said that to keep military leadership in one branch would be to follow in the footsteps of Suharto's New Order, which provided overwhelming power to the Army.
'Breaking from the tradition means we'll be going back to the New Order era because formerly we agreed to practice [that tradition] as part of the reform agenda,' he said. (ren)(+++)
