Jakarta – Indonesia's new cabinet announced Tuesday by President Abdurrahman Wahid reflects the new leader's preoccupation with accommodating all factions in the country's politics rather than emphasizing professionalism, analysts said here.

"There is nuance of reconciliation evident here, the wish to be non-inclusive overriding other considerations," said political scientist Kusnanto Anggoro of the private think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Wahid announced the new cabinet lineup six days after he was elected by the national assembly to become the country's fourth president following intense political maneuvering and horse trading.

The 35-member cabinet was a showcase of of the main political parties and faction in the country, Anggoro said. "It is just as the president called it, a 'National Unity cabinet,'" political commentator Kastorius Sinaga said.

"What jumps to the eye is that it proportionately reflects the political powers, including the armed forces ... it is trying to be accommodative in view of achieving instant national reconciliation," Sinaga said.

He pointed out many of the new ministers, while maybe possessing integrity and commitment, had no prior exposure to the fields they were now in charge of. "Are they the right men in the right places?" he asked.

While Anggoro said time should be allowed for the cabinet to prove themselves, Sinaga said time was not on the government's side.

"The ministers will not only need to acquaint themselves with their portfolios, they will also have to get to know each other and to cooperate. Meanwhile, the urgency of the problems faced by the nation is there," Sinaga said.

Faisal Tajuddin, the secretary general of Gempita, a private group concerned on state assets, said that many of the ministers, because of their unfamiliarity with their portfolios, would need to draw on the expertise of people outside their respective ministries.

The ministers also risked "being misled" by their officials, especially in postings where public confidence had thinned drastically, such as at the attorney general's office. Taking the attorney general's post was Marzuki Darusman, a Golkar Party deputy chairman and the chairman of the national commission on human rights. Though a law graduate, he has no previous exposure to the nitty-gritty technicalities of his new office.

Sinaga also said the danger of a cabinet composed of such of variety of party and faction members, was that ministers may have difficulties separating their party interests from the interest of the nation.

"Are they ready to shed their political clothes and become purely assistants to the president?" he said. Anggoro said that for the time being, the cabinet lineup will be able to reconcile the nation's various political factions.

The people, including the students, would also not care too much about the composition for now, as their main concerns were the restoration of the economy, the eradiction of corruption and a halt to the military's political role, he said.

"But we will have to see, in the longer term whether they are capable or not." Tajuddin said the people should at least give the cabinet a three-month honeymoon before it can show that it can actually function.