W

hen incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama went on campaign leave, he believed that anyone appointed as acting governor would meddle with his plans and policies.

Acting governor Sumarsono, a senior bureaucrat from the Home Ministry, has made several moves during his first month leading the administration.

After increasing the city budget from Ahok’s draft on Tuesday, Sumarsono promoted several officials that had been previously demoted to regular staffers by Ahok.

The promoted officials were among 5,038 inaugurated that day.

Sumarsono claimed earlier that he had consulted with Ahok regarding the civil servant reshuffle, but this claim was later denied by Ahok.

Ahok expressed on Thursday his disapproval of Sumarsono’s action.

“Why did he appoint civil servants who had problems and had been demoted? We have a lot of qualified employees who don’t have jobs now [because of the restructuring],” Ahok said at his campaign headquarters on Jl. Lembang, Menteng, Central Jakarta.

Ahok added that the acting governor should have prioritized promoting qualified employees in the restructuring. He said he did not understand why Sumarsono decided to promote staff members he had previously demoted.

Despite his disappointment, Ahok said he did not have the power to change the situation because he was a non-active governor. Ahok has voiced complaints over the policies of the acting governor, despite the latter’s policies being deemed positive by many.

Sumarsono has expedited land acquisition for the long-stalled MRT project in the city, by cooperating with the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) political researcher Ikrar Nusa Bakti said Sumarsono’s actions had aroused questions among the public.

“Is an acting governor authorized to inaugurate civil servants that had been demoted?” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

He said Sumarsono’s decision might cause problems after the incumbent returns to office.

The governor might demote those employees again in the future, a move that may cause problems in the bureaucracy, he said.

For that reason, Ikrar said the government needed to specifically regulate the authorities of an acting governor.

Ikrar said the government needed to evaluate whether a home ministerial regulation that gave an acting governor the power take on all the roles of a governor while the latter was on leave, contravened other laws. “The regulation should be evaluated due to its dilemmatic nature,” he said.