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Ma'ruf takes back seat in first 100 days
"The president should be the one who stands out. If the vice president stands out, there will be twin suns," Ma'ruf told reporters at the Vice Presidential Palace in Central Jakarta on Wednesday.
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Vice President Ma'ruf Amin waves from inside a train while visiting Serang railway station in Serang, Banten, on Thursday. (Antara/Asep Fathulrahman)
A
s President Joko “Jokowi” Widido’s vice president, Ma'ruf Amin has spent his first 100 days in office out of the spotlight, drawing unfavorable comparisons to his predecessor and raising questions about his role as the country's second-in-command.
The senior Muslim cleric's advanced age and relatively limited experience in party politics was predicted to cause him to have a more peripheral role than former vice president Jusuf Kalla, and the past few months seem to have confirmed that, observers have noted.
"Pak Ma'ruf was chosen as [Jokowi's] running mate for symbolic reasons, and he seems to be playing a symbolic role as vice president," Firman Noor, head of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Political Research Center, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
He added that Ma'ruf's political capacity was very different from Kalla's, resulting in Ma'ruf playing a much smaller part in Jokowi’s second-term administration.
Kalla, former chairman of the Golkar Party, brought a wealth of political and business experience to the office, having been a successful businessman before jumping into politics. He had previously served as a coordinating minister in former president Megawati Soekarnoputri's cabinet and as vice president to former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
An outspoken man, Kalla often weighed in on current issues during his time as Jokowi's deputy, even those that did not directly concern the vice presidential office. He also played a large role in policymaking, particularly in relation to the economy.
In contrast, Ma'ruf had been out of party politics for over a decade when he was tapped as Jokowi's running mate in 2018. Since then, he has been mostly involved in religious organizations, having formerly headed Islamic mass organization Nahdlatul Ulama as its rais aam (supreme leader) and currently holding a position as non-active chairman at the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI).
