Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid faced anger among coalition parties within his already fractious six-month-old government yesterday after he fired two key financial ministers.
Several senior politicians raised the prospect of withdrawing their factions from the Cabinet in protest.
The Cabinet reshuffle was also greeted by suspicion with few believing it would make a jot of difference to its stated aim of revitalising faltering economic reforms.
Mr Abdurrahman, who is under increasing international pressure to accelerate reforms to Indonesia's crisis-ridden economy, sacked Trade and Industry Minister Yusuf Kalla and Investment Minister Laksamana Sukardi on Monday.
A Cabinet spokesman said the decision was designed to ease tensions and fix poor coordination among ministers in charge of restructuring the moribund and corrupt financial system.
The ministers were fired just hours after the President met Mr Stanley Fischer, the acting head of the International Monetary Fund, who urged Indonesia not to waver on a commitment to make painful economic changes.
Officials within Mr Kalla's Golkar Party and Mr Laksamana's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDIP, said they regarded the dismissals as an attack by Mr Abdurrahman on their power within the Cabinet.
President Abdurrahman, who is backed by his Muslim-dominated Nation Awakening Party, has replaced the two ministers with Indonesia's ambassador in Singapore Luhut Panjaitan, a serving army general, and Mr Rozy Munir, a senior bureaucrat and Aburrahman supporter.
Some party officials raised the possibility of pulling out of the Cabinet. Golkar's chairman and Speaker of Parliament Akbar Tanjung told reporters his party might withdraw support for the government if the President fails to provide a good explanation for the sackings. "Pulling out of Cabinet is one possibility," he said.
Mr Abdurrahman, who is regarded as a reformer, appointed his Cabinet after he was elected head of state in October. At that time he admitted the line-up represented a compromise to accommodate the ambitions of several parties and the politically powerful military.
Analysts said a main worry in the reshuffle was the replacement of investment minister Laksamana Sukardi with a subordinate whose main qualification seems to be his closeness to Mr Abdurrahman.
That has triggered charges that Mr Abdurrahman is swelling the ranks of his inner circles based on old associations rather than skills.