Rivals could end up in Cabinet

JAKARTA. President-elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s early announcement that almost half the seats in his Cabinet would be occupied by politicians appears to have been effective in luring parties from the rival camp to join the coalition led by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

On Thursday, executives of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP), both members of Prabowo Subianto’s Red-and-White Coalition, sent signals that they would jump ship.

Executives from the two parties said they would attend the national assembly meeting of the PDI-P, scheduled for this weekend in Semarang, Central Java.

So far, the PDI-P has only sent invitations to PAN and the PPP, heightening speculation that only politicians from those two parties would be offered seats in Jokowi’s Cabinet.

Vice president-elect Jusuf Kalla has defended Jokowi’s overtures toward political parties from the rival coalition.

“We need a firm coalition in both the government and the House of Representatives,” Kalla said on Wednesday.

Kalla was also convinced that others would soon follow. “Some parties [from the Prabowo-Hatta Rajasa coalition] are about to come on board. It’s just a matter of time.”

Kalla said the 16 Cabinet seats would be filled by members of political parties from both the PDI-P-led coalition and the Red-and-White Coalition.

“The 16 posts will be distributed in a way to maintain balance and harmony. It’s flexible, though,” Kalla said.

When asked how many posts would be given to each party, Kalla said it “depended on a number of factors, including how many seats the political party has in the House of Representatives.”

Kalla also said that other considerations included how much the party had contributed to help the Jokowi-Kalla ticket win the July 9 presidential election.

Kalla’s statement appeared to lend credence to speculations that the next Cabinet would resemble that of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, especially in its distribution of seats based on the strengths of the political parties in the House.

Based on such calculations, the PDI-P is expected to get the largest number of ministerial posts.

With no fixed number of seats having been revealed, many have come up with conjecture on
how the next Cabinet would take shape.

One scenario predicts that the PDI-P would get seven seats, while the National Awakening Party (PKB), the NasDem Party and the Hanura Party would get four, three, and two seats respectively.

However, if PAN and the PPP finally join the ruling coalition, those two parties could each get one minister and the PDI-P could see its slots reduced by two.

There is also speculation that the Golkar Party could also get one or two seats in the Cabinet.

Kalla, who remains a Golkar Party member, could use his influence to persuade executives of the party to abandon its support for Prabowo’s Red-and-White Coalition and start a plot to oust current party chairman Aburizal Bakrie during the party’s national congress scheduled for early next year.

Many have also speculated that Golkar could be offered the slots right away, regardless of the party’s stance. Under this scenario, the PKB and Hanura would only end up with three seats and one seat, respectively.

The PKB is the second largest party in the coalition based on the April 9 legislative election, with 9 percent of the vote as opposed to NasDem’s 6.7 percent. But the fact that the PKB joined the coalition later than NasDem has prompted many to propose that the two parties deserve equal treatment.

Andi Widjajanto, a deputy in Jokowi-Kalla’s transition team, declined to comment when asked about such a scenario. “The transition team was tasked to come up with criteria for each ministerial post. When it comes to the issue of seat distribution, it will be a political decision made by Jokowi and Kalla,” he said.

Andi also said that Jokowi and Kalla were scheduled to meet with leaders of political parties in the coalition to discuss how the Cabinet would take shape.

PKB politician Eko Putro Sandjojo, also one of the team’s deputies, acknowledged that his party nominated more than four candidates to Jokowi and Kalla. “We nominated our best members to serve in the Cabinet,” he said.

Meanwhile, NasDem secretary general Patrice Rio Capella said that the party had not yet given its list
of candidates to Jokowi.  “Jokowi has not asked us to prepare names of candidates yet,” he said on Thursday. (Bagus BT Saragih and Margareth S. Aritonang)