State Secretary Pratikno confirmed on Friday that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had officially appointed Hanif as acting youth and sports minister, meaning that Hanif would oversee the two ministerial posts until the end of Jokowi's first presidential term on Oct. 20.

Pratikno said several considerations led to Hanif being the choice for acting minister and the President did not have many options since some ministers who ran for and won seats in the 2019 legislative elections would be inaugurated as House of Representatives members on Oct. 1. 

"Because there aren't many options, the President has decided to appoint Pak Hanif as acting [minister]," Pratikno told reporters at the Bogor Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, on Friday.

Hanif is a politician from the National Awakening Party (PKB), which has backed Jokowi since his first presidential bid in 2014 and is commonly regarded as the unofficial political wing of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama. 

He was among the original members of Jokowi's Cabinet and he managed to remain in his position despite several shake-ups in the lineup over the years.

His appointment came after his predecessor, fellow PKB politician Imam Nahrawi, offered Jokowi his resignation on Thursday after he became embroiled in a bribery case involving the National Sports Council (KONI).

Imam, the second minister in Jokowi’s Cabinet to be named a suspect in a graft case, was accused by the KPK of receiving Rp 26.5 billion (US$1.9 million) in bribes from KONI and the head of Satlak Prima (Gold Program), a national sporting program for elite athletes that was dissolved in 2018. (ars)

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