O

ne by one, political parties in the opposition camp are joining the ruling coalition in supporting Jokowi'€™s administration. This shows that politics in Indonesia does not revolve much around ideology or platform, but mainly interests. It is very hard for a political party to stay in the opposition because it will be without access to power, which is important to keep political parties afloat.

This is important because political parties need financing. Only the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) showed its commitment to remain in the opposition during the presidency of Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono (SBY), not to mention during Soeharto'€™s era.

Appointing members of political parties as ministers, ambassadors, or heads of state-owned enterprises (SOE) has become crucial to the President to maintain political support. For this reason, Cabinet reshuffles are a necessary measure.

The question, however, is: Does having strong political support translate to more effective economic policies? The answer is: not necessarily. With stronger political support, the President may be confident in forming his own team, but at the same time he has to accommodate more political appointees.

Technocratic ministers have difficulties in coordinating with politician ministers. Politician ministers tend to be more protective in their policies, while technocrat ministers are more liberal and market-based in economic policies. Politician ministers have agendas to fulfill and political interests that may not be in line with effective policies and good governance. The role of coordinating ministers is to synergize sectoral policies, which is very hard, especially if the coordinating minister is not the trusted man of the President. Ministers who are close to the President have diametral differences in policy, such as the trade minister, who is very much for opening up the economy to foreign investors, while the agriculture minister is very protectionist.

Nine policy packages have been issued, ranging from deregulation to infrastructure development. Government spending has also shown improvement. However, it is quite likely that implementation of the packages may still lax. The easiest policies to implement are those related to deregulation.

 The coordinating economic minister has done well in drafting policy packages, but the implementation is in the hand of sectoral ministers. Even if a policy package has been announced, presidential and ministerial decrees are usually required to be issued for policy implementation.

The coordinating economic minister, however, is still struggling to gain the trust of the President, making it difficult to coordinate ministries.

Meanwhile, the coordinating maritime affairs minister is having a lot of fun criticizing other ministers, although there is some basis for his criticism. The problem is, that instead of resolving the conflict of interest or different views within the sectors he coordinates, he aggravates the conflict.

Decisions at the ministerial level are not necessarily followed through by the bureaucrats at the ministries. In general, bureaucrats are protectionists with regard to economic policies. Their attitude is that the government and SOEs are the drivers of the economy, not the private sector.

Despite the President having already officiated the groundbreaking of the high-speed railway linking Jakarta and Bandung, administrative requirements such as licenses from the Transportation Ministry have yet to be issued, while there are still questions regarding the commercial viability of the project.

Questions surrounding the development of the Masela gas project also remain, with a serious dispute between the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and the coordinating maritime affairs minister. The most difficult aspect is resolving the conflict of interest among different ministers.

The contract extension of Freeport Indonesia has also become more complicated as too many interests are involved.

There also seems to be too many Chinese investors in electricity projects, sidelining other investors, aggravating the conflict between those who strongly prefer Chinese investors, such as the Vice President and SOE minister, and those who prefer giving opportunities to other investors.

Meanwhile, at the Trade Ministry, even though the minister has decided on an open trade policy, but the bureaucrats have a preference for protectionist policies.

Bigger political support certainly provides political stability, which is very important for the administration to work properly. However, this does not guarantee more effective policy implementation. For policies to be effective in implementation, it is not enough that the policy be reasonable and important but it has to be able to overcome the pressures from vested interests that may block its implementation.

The President has to work harder to resolve the conflict of interests among the ministers and his political supporters and give trust to the coordinating ministers not only power to coordinate but also to act as honest brokers.
_______________________________________

The writer is a senior fellow at CIDES (Center for Information and Development Studies) and the
Habibie Center.