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Retno and Sri Mulyani, President Jokowi’s ‘Charlie’s Angels’ in G20
Retno and her team led lengthy discussions, moving paragraph by paragraph, word by word, to accommodate everyone’s wishes and get others to agree on the declaration text.
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President Joko “Jokowi“ Widodo (right) speaks as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks on during the G20 Summit in Bali on Nov. 16. (G20 Secretariat/-)
Indonesia could pride itself for carving a piece of history after hosting the Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali that saw members of the world’s 20 largest economies, against all odds, accept a declaration last week.
While President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo reaped international plaudits for the success, the historic achievement has underlined the pivotal role of two female Cabinet ministers. Some of the male ministers involved in the summit tried to steal the show by issuing press statements, but they simply aimed to tell the public they had worked hard too.
Certainly, those male ministers deserve credit, but many would agree the role Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati played was pivotal in helping President Jokowi accomplish his mission. The two lady ministers remind me of the tough, skillful and charming “Charlie’s Angels”, who always get things done. While in the TV series and movie sequels Charlie has three angels, Jokowi only needs two.
"It's Charlie, Angels. Time to go to work,” is the famous line when the angels receive an order to solve a case.
In preparing the Bali summit, Retno closely worked with her friend of 43 years Sri Muyani almost throughout the year. The plan nearly collapsed after Russia, one of the G20 members, invaded Ukraine in February. Another scare came in the last minutes of the Bali meeting when the leaders of the world’s seven richest nations demanded the G20 issue a harsher condemnation against Russia.
But eventually, everybody could accept Indonesia’s compromised draft declaration. United States President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who came to Bali on behalf of President Vladimir Putin, did not raise any objection.
“We did it. A mission impossible accomplished,” Retno texted in a WhatsApp message to me after President Jokowi closed the two-day summit on Wednesday.
