Wahid announces new Cabinet

By Amit Baruah

SINGAPORE, AUG. 23. A new 26-member Cabinet was announced by the Indonesian President, Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid, in Jakarta today, following the stringent criticism of his style of functioning in the last 10 months.

Mr. Wahid named Lt. Gen. (Retd) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs, Security and Social Welfare and Mr. Rizal Ramli as Coordinating Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry. The President, the Vice-President, Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the two Coordinating Ministers are expected to form the new ``quartet'' who will take all the decisions.

Interestingly, Ms. Megawati, who is to take over the task of every day governance, was not present when Mr. Wahid announced his new Cabinet.

A confidant of the President, the Foreign Minister, Mr. Alwi Shihab, retained his old portfolio while a friend of the President, Mr. Prijadi Prapto Subardjo, was appointed Finance Minister.

The 26-member Cabinet, which is down by nine from the previous strength of 35, comes close on the heels of a People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) session which asked the President to pull up his socks.

Some 17 members of the previous Cabinet have been retained by Mr. Wahid while a little-known college professor, Mr. Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin, comes in as the new Defence Minister.

The new Cabinet, which is scheduled to be sworn in on Saturday, consists of two senior Coordinating Ministers, 16 Ministers incharge of different departments, five State Ministers and three junior Ministers. The changes in the Cabinet amount to a ``second chance'' for the President who made a number of compromises in order to survive the just-concluded MPR session.

Maintaining that the new Cabinet would be result- oriented, Mr. Wahid was quoted as telling mediapersons in Jakarta: ``My consideration was that they must be experts in their fields....I know them one by one.''

The appointment of Mr. Bambang and Mr. Rizal as Coordinating Ministers was widely expected after a deal was worked out between Mr. Wahid and Ms. Megawati.

While Mr. Wahid joked at his press conference that the Vice- President stayed away from the announcement of the new Cabinet because she had to ``take a bath'', speculative reports suggested the latter was not happy with the constitution of the Cabinet.

However, analysts in Jakarta stated that Ms. Megawati stayed away because she would have had to read out the list of names. She wanted to avoid this task and the list was read out by a senior official.

The analysts insisted that the President had held several rounds of consultations over the constitution of the new Cabinet and Ms. Megawati was satisfied with the line-up.

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Section  : International
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