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Indonesian president-elect Joko Widodo has announced that his forthcoming government will be consisted of 34 ministries.
The announcement was made Monday by the president-elect who was accompanied by Vice President-elect Jusuf kalla at a press conference in Jakarta.
The number of 34 ministries is the highest allowed by the country's existing law No. 39/2008 that sets 34 as the maximum number of ministries in the Indonesian government.
The government led by incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has 31 ministries.
Widodo, who won the July election and will be sworn-in as the nation's seventh president on Oct. 20, has pledged a technocratic government.
"What is most important is that we want to build a strong cabinet," the president-elect said at the news conference.
He said the ministries will be led by ministers who are " professionals", adding that of the 34 ministerial positions, 18 would be taken by professionals and the rest by political party members who supported his candidacy in the election.
"The distribution is 18 professionals and 16 party professionals," he said.
Meanwhile, Widodo said there will be three coordinating ministers. He will eliminate ministerial deputy posts in ministries except for the foreign affairs ministry.
However, Widodo did not name any ministers at the press conference. It is widely expected that he will do so early in October.
Joko Widodo was supported by a coalition of four parties to contest in the July 9 election. Those parties are the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the National Democratic ( Nasdem) Party, the Nation Awakening Party (PKB) and the People's Conscince (Hanura) Party.
The announcement has received mixed responses from several parties in the country. Political analyst Siti Zuhro alleged that Joko Widodo could not avoid pressures from his political allies to make him provide more ministerial allocation for them.
"This is different from our expectation. We expect a slim- structured cabinet with maximum function that suits with our regional autonomy policy...Joko's cabinet posture is different from that spirit," Siti Zuhro, a analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), said Tuesday.
The analyst said that the cabinet posture is also different from the one promised by Joko Widodo during the campaign period.
Siti said that Joko promised to reform the formation of the cabinet with breakthrough ideas. But apparently, his cabinet is even larger than the previously-criticized President Yudhoyono's. Enditem
