ewly installed President Prabowo Subianto has been urged to strictly monitor the performance of his Red and White Cabinet, which consists of more than 100 officials, and tighten the government fiscal discipline to ensure the effectiveness of the cabinet, characterized by many as “bloated”.
The former defense minister expanded the cabinet to include 48 ministers, 56 deputy ministers and five heads of ministerial-level agencies, thanks to the rushed revision of the 2008 Ministry Law in September to remove a legal limit of 34 on the number of ministries.
Experts have speculated that creating such a “fat cabinet” was Prabowo’s attempt to reward his supporters and political allies through government positions, as seen from the fact that a large number of the 109 cabinet members are a mix of Prabowo loyalists and appointees from the administration of his predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the father of current Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) political department head Arya Fernandes acknowledged that Prabowo had to form a big cabinet to ensure he had a stable government and strong support in the House of Representatives.
"It's a result of Indonesia's quite extreme multi-party system where no political party holds more than 25 percent of the seats in the legislature,” Arya said in a public discussion on Friday.
“Prabowo's own Gerindra party only holds 14 percent of seats in the House, so he has to form a big-tent coalition to ensure the stability of his administration," he added.
Read also: Prabowo demands loyalty from his cabinet
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