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Jokowi told to choose ambassadors from career officials
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo should focus on merit when hiring in the Foreign Ministry and elect ambassadors from the ministry's career officials, said head of the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I overseeing intelligence, defense and foreign affairs Mahfudz Siddiq
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resident Joko "Jokowi" Widodo should focus on merit when hiring in the Foreign Ministry and elect ambassadors from the ministry's career officials, said head of the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I overseeing intelligence, defense and foreign affairs Mahfudz Siddiq.
According to Mahfudz, since the era of former foreign minister Hasan Wirayudha, the ministry has been applying a merit-based system internally when filling structural and functional posts as well as staff positions at Indonesia's consular offices abroad.
"The system is designed such that a proportion of ambassador candidates coming from outside the ministry could actually disturb the Foreign Ministry's meritocratic system," said Mahfudz as quoted by kompas.com.
As an example, he pointed to Jokowi's recently proposed ambassadors of which one-third are non-career officials though the ambassadors they will be replacing are all career diplomats.
"A disturbance in the [system of promotions] will leave many career diplomats, having finished their duties and returned to Indonesia, with no official post to match their rank," he added.
Mahfudz also said that 100 percent of foreign ambassadors who are posted to Indonesia are career diplomats and that that is the norm in many countries.
"There are no regulations stipulating that an ambassador must be a career diplomat, but the post should not be given to someone who has never operated in the diplomatic world because doing so involves certain skills, knowledge, ethics and protocols," said Mahfudz.
The President recently sent the names of 33 ambassador candidates to the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I, and eight of them are politicians.
Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung has observed that the number of politicians proposed by Jokowi is less than the number of candidates from the Foreign Ministry. (kes)
