f President Prabowo Subianto truly meant what he said during his recent visit to Singapore, that he would “copy with pride” its model of governance, then by now he should have reshuffled his cabinet entirely. He should have embraced meritocracy, appointing the most capable Indonesians regardless of political debt or personal loyalty.
He should have paused and rigorously evaluated each of his programs, scrapping those that fail to serve the public. The trillions allocated to vanity projects should have been redirected toward reindustrializing a country long stuck in premature deindustrialization.
Instead, eight months into his presidency, the government has been adrift, run by incompetent ministers and increasingly allergic to accountability, resorting to tired blame games about foreign interference, as failing regimes often do.
The rot begins at the top. Despite growing public concern, Prabowo continues to insist that his cabinet operates as a unified, effective team. But beyond press releases and staged appearances, there is little evidence the administration has a functional grasp of its duties, or even a shared understanding of its goals.
Coordination between ministries is weak, critical sectors lack direction and the administration clings to the illusion of unity while ignoring the reality of dysfunction.
How else can one explain why three of Indonesia’s most critical ambassadorial posts, to the United States, the United Nations and Germany, have remained vacant for so long? If the foreign minister was capable, these posts would have been filled months ago with credible appointees.
Or take Cooperative Minister Budi Arie Setiadi. Despite widespread media reports accusing him of shielding online gambling networks and his underwhelming tenure as information minister, he now oversees the Red-White Cooperatives, an enormous economic program worth trillions of rupiah. Why? Because loyalty, not performance, is rewarded.
