Vaudine England, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid, recently back from China, has injected new insecurity into his cabinet by saying he hardly knows some of them and suggesting some should resign.
Asked about three unnamed cabinet members who are being investigated by the Attorney-General's office for corruption, Mr Wahid said at the weekend they would be taken to court if necessary.
"Or there is another way that means not dragging it through court, which is resigning," he said. "The egg has hatched. Pak Hamzah Haz has resigned, that's that."
He was referring to his former co-ordinating minister for peoples' welfare and poverty eradication, Hamzah Haz, who resigned last week. "The others can also resign if they want. An excuse can always be found, that's easy," he said.
The disconcerting President went on to describe the composition of his rainbow coalition cabinet as the result of political deal-making, implying he would be happy to lose several of them. "There are ministers that I just met, that I don't know. It was horse-trading to the fullest," he said.
Mr Wahid secured his own job with the support of the Axis Force, a loose alliance of Muslim-based parties led by Amien Rais, now chairman of the Peoples' Consultative Assembly.
He also gained some support from the more progressive wing of the former ruling party Golkar, led by the new chairman of the House of Representatives, Akbar Tanjung.
And he freely admits he owed debts to then armed forces chief General Wiranto, now Co-ordinating Minister for Politics and Security, and to then opposition leader and now Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
"So Pak Amien, Pak Akbar, Pak Wiranto, Mbak Mega and myself were trading cattle, thus as a result you have a cabinet like this," Mr Wahid said. "Originally the cabinet only comprised 18 people and I carefully selected them. "This is what it's like to sell cows – in the past it was great because you had the market to yourself, but now you have to trade with others."
More to the point, say commentators, is that in the past, the wily Mr Wahid was not president. Now that he is, some wish he would keep his more frank thoughts to himself.
Rumours are flying as to who is under investigation and Mr Wahid earlier took the rare step of denying in writing that his minister for law and legislation, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, was among them.
Before becoming president, Mr Wahid had said he wanted a small, efficient cabinet in which jobs were awarded solely on merit, and he may now be hoping to achieve that through attrition.
The other provocative point raised by Mr Wahid on his return was his claimed success in securing US$200 million of investments from Israel for largely Muslim Indonesia.
A variety of Muslim and political groups have protested against his goal of trade ties with Israel, but Mr Wahid appears to want to show his disdain for them too.