“[The Jokowi administration] has launched many initiatives and innovations to radically improve public services,” Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician and Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin campaign team member Eva Kusuma Sundari said, citing the recently implemented online single submission (OSS) system for business permits as an example.

She acknowledged, however, that the implementation of many public service reforms outside of the central government was hampered by a lack of cooperation from some regional administrations.

“Regional autonomy makes it hard for the central government to force things on provincial administrations, so it depends on the political will of the respective regional heads,” she said.

She added that, going forward, Jokowi wanted to increase e-budgeting and e-government programs to improve bureaucratic transparency and accountability.

Gerindra Party deputy chairman and Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno campaign spokesman Ferry Juliantono, on the other hand, said that Prabowo felt that it was the central government’s structure that had to be reformed, returning to the campaign’s running criticism of the Jokowi administration’s perceived reliance on imports.

“We believe that the central government’s organizational structure, particularly the Cabinet should be a tool for presidential candidates to carry out their programs, but systemic bureaucratic problems often distort this,” he said. “For example, right now the Trade Ministry is importing rice, while the Agriculture Ministry says that there is a rice surplus, which shows a lack of coordination.”

However, when asked how Prabowo planned to restructure the Cabinet, Ferry said the campaign was still formulating its design.

“It’s possible that some ministries could be combined, or added to, or abolished, it will be adapted according to our vision and mission,” he said.

Eva replied that Jokowi had already made changes to the Cabinet structure when he first entered office in 2014, creating new coordinating ministries and separating out the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry from the Home Ministry.

She acknowledged some overlap and competition between ministries remained but said that these were mostly inherited from the previous administration.

“We have made a lot of improvements at the Cabinet level, which have resulted in new structures and nomenclatures,” she said. “But changing nomenclature should be the result of bureaucratic reform and not a goal in and of itself.”

Civil servants made up the largest category of individuals investigated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) from 2014 to 2018 and Transparency International Indonesia’s 2017 Global Corruption Barometer, which polled more than 1,000 respondents in 31 provinces, found that 50 percent of respondents considered civil servants to be the most graft-prone individuals.

Indonesia has also remained relatively stagnant on the World Bank’s government effectiveness index, which, among other things, reflects perceptions of the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures.

“Both campaigns should think about what targets they want to achieve at the end of five years,” he said.

CSIS deputy executive director Medelina K. Hendytio added that political will from outside the executive branch was also important in order for bureaucratic reform to succeed.

“Political parties have to look beyond their own interests, which often clash with reform,” she said. “The general public also needs to show their support for change.”

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