Palace on Cabinet Reshuffle: All Work Hard to Combat Covid-19

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The presidential spokesman Fadjroel Rachman clarified that the government did not plan to reshuffle the cabinet in the near future.

“There is no [reshuffle], all [cabinet ministers] are working hard in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Fadjroel via a text on Wednesday night, May 27.

Several political observers assessed that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo needs to conduct cabinet reshuffle in order to restore the public trust to the government which is recently dropping in light of the Covid-19 mitigation.

“Jokowi is like a football manager who wants to improve the performance of his club by replacing old players with new fresher ones,” said a political communication observer from the University of Indonesia, Ari Junaedi, to Tempo on Wednesday.

The latest survey held by Indo Barometer showed that the majority of the respondents were dissatisfied with the performance of Jokowi’s government in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“53.8 percent respondents rate dissatisfaction,” said the Indo Barometer executive director M. Qodari in a written statement on Tuesday, May 26.

The reasons, he outlined, Jokowi’s policies were considered inconsistent, responses related to general handlings were slow, and the president and his officials commonly issued distinct policies.

The Indonesia Political Opinion (IPO) executive director, Dedi Kurnia Syah, shared similar views that cabinet reshuffle is necessary, particularly in sectors related to pandemic mitigation such as legal, health, manpower, up to the economy.

“A reshuffle can highly affect the public trust. Moreover, if the target is ministers from the government’s coalition,” said Dedi.

DEWI NURITA