Max Lane – The new president has been in power nearly two months but many questions remain unresolved.

Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka were sworn in as President and Vice-President of Indonesia almost two months ago. In the lead-up to the inauguration, there was a season of speculation. President Prabowo has moved quickly to appoint his Cabinet but its composition has not quietened speculation about future political trajectories, including a possible Cabinet reshuffle.

One factor is that there are so many ministries and agency heads, including 53 ministerial-level positions, that it is impossible at this stage to scope what each may or may not do.

There are four general categories of Cabinet membership, although this categorisation may change as we observe individual performances. One group comprises those in charge of the key economic ministries: Airlangga Hartato remains the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and Erick Thohir the Minister of State-owned Enterprises. Bahlil Lahadalia retains the energy and mineral resources portfolio, which he took over only in August 2024 under the previous administration. Budi Santoso is now Minister of Trade. He was director-general of foreign trade from 2022 to 2024 under former president Joko Widodo.

The most crucial position of finance minister, held by Sri Mulyani Indrawati under Widodo, has been given to her again but has been repositioned. Sri Mulyani will no longer report to Airlangga, as she did under Widodo and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. She now reports directly to the president. This rearrangement suggests that Prabowo may more directly supervise economic policy, giving rise to the question: What might be the divergences from the policy orientation of the previous three presidential terms that required this repositioning? A point to note is that Sri Mulyani and then-defence minister Prabowo had previously disagreed when the Ministry of Finance refused to fund additional warplanes.

The second group of new ministers are proteges of Prabowo. These include Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sugiono, who was Prabowo's private secretary. Others include Prasetyo Hadi, now Secretary of State, an established Gerindra politician and Teddy Indra Wijaya, now Cabinet Secretary, who was an active military officer and Prabowo's adjutant while he was minister of defence. The new Minister for Culture, Fadli Zon, is a key figure in Gerindra and long-time Prabowo protege.

The third group are ministers outside the economic ministries, some of whom were clearly appointed for their expertise. This is particularly the case for the human development and cultural affairs ministries. The Coordinating Minister is Pratikno, secretary of state for Widodo for ten years and his close confidant. Pratikno is a former rector of Gajah Mada University and thus can claim a legitimate professional connection to this portfolio, which includes the education ministries. Pratikno has been close to Widodo, who would have supported his appointment.

Another grouping with some greater ambiguity, feeding speculation, are the ministers directly looking after politics, security and law. The Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs is Budi Gunawan. Before this appointment, he was head of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN). His current appointment has some ambiguity: on the one hand, he served as head of BIN under Widodo from 2016 to 2024. On the other, he is considered a close confidant of Megawati Sukarnoputri, having been her adjutant when she was vice-president (1999-2000) and president (2000-2004). However, former police general Tito Karnavian retains the home affairs ministry he held under Widodo while former New Order general and deputy defence minister under president Yudhoyono, Syafrie Syamsuddin, gets the Ministry of Defence. Is Budi Gunawan there as a concession to Megawati or for some other reason? This is another cause for speculation.

At the same time, former Suharto speechwriter and New Order-era political figure, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, is Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Corrections. One of his first statements was to declare that any violations of human rights in 1998, when violence was used against protesters, could not be legally categorised as gross violations. A Papuan politician and former anti-Suharto activist, Natalius Pigai, was appointed Minister for Human Rights.

From a purely factional perspective, the parties out of government under Prabowo will constitute a larger proportion of the Parliament (DPR) than under Widodo. These include the country's largest party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Under Prabowo, the PDI-P and the National Democrats (Nasdem) are not currently in government, compared to the Democrat Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) under Widodo. This fact alone is one of the bases for speculation: What roles will these parties play in a political system where all parties say they are against the idea of "opposition" in politics? It is possible that the PDI-P and Nasdem will continue to behave differently.

The largest of these non-government, non-opposition parties is the PDI-P. It is still unclear what the PDI-P's ultimate orientation might be. It seems that the party is moving to make clearer its severance of alignment with Widodo and his family by lapsing their party membership. The party was involved in four significant electoral battles in the recent regional elections, including in Jakarta and Central Java. While there were no major or specific policy debates in these contests, the campaign in Jakarta was more intense as the candidate supported by Prabowo and Widodo, Ridwan Kamil, resumed a tactical flirtation with elements from the Islamic Defenders Front, agreeing to strong, Islamist points. Most importantly, in Jakarta, the PDI-P has scored a slim victory.

In the meantime, the symbolic question that relates to the PDI-P's stance is when or whether Megawati will meet Prabowo? Perhaps this will happen only after another subject of speculation is resolved: When will Prabowo seek to marginalise Widodo?

[Max Lane is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He has been an academic at the University of Sydney, Victoria University (Melbourne), Murdoch University and the National University of Singapore and has lectured at universities in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States.]

Source: https://fulcrum.sg/prabowo-subianto-now-president-with-new-cabinet-but-speculation-still-rampant