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Will Prabowo’s bloated cabinet face same fate as Sukarno’s?
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President Prabowo Subianto and Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka arrive for a group photo with newly appointed cabinet ministers, at the State Palace in Jakarta on Oct. 21, 2024. (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
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ewly inaugurated President Prabowo Subianto has sworn in his Red and White Cabinet consisting of more than 100 officials, the largest the country has seen in decades since first President Sukarno formed in 1966 the second Dwikora Cabinet with a line-up of 132 ministers, but which only lasted for a month.
The current greatly expanded cabinet was made possible after the House of Representatives removed the 34-minister limit mandated previously through the 2008 State Ministers Law.
On Monday, a day after taking the oath as the nation’s eighth president, Prabowo officiated 48 ministers, 56 deputy ministers and five heads of ministerial-level agencies, featuring a mix of his loyalists and appointees from the administration of his predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the father of Prabowo’s Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
Prabowo’s move to form such a fat cabinet has raised many eyebrows as it is seen as an apparent attempt to distribute “a slice of the pie” to everyone, despite the warnings of significant budget strain and a potential increase in bureaucratic hurdles.
Nonetheless this is not the first time the country has seen such a bloated cabinet of over 100 ministers.
Read also: Prabowo presents largest cabinet in decades
President Sukarno formed an administration of 110 ministers and ministerial-level officials, dubbed the Dwikora Cabinet, in 1964 in the hope of implementing the government policy he had announced through his Independence Day speech entitled "The Year of Living Dangerously".
