Jokowi following his inauguration as Indonesias seventh President on Monday, October 20, 2014 promised to announce immediately his cabinet ministers but until the fourth day on Thursday, the new president had yet to make public his ministers.
Some analysts feared that Jokowis slow pace in announcing the cabinet ministers structure would fuel market negative sentiment while others believed that market players will understand the Presidents reason to postpone his announcement.
In the morning on Wednesday, Jokowi said he would likely announce his cabinet lineup on that day, yet until Thursday, he did not realize it yet.
The delayed announcement of the cabinet lineup is feared to reduce investors and market players trust and fuel negative sentiment in the money and stock markets, stated economic observer Enny Sri Hartati
Researcher Enny Sri Hartati of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) noted on Thursday that the market players continued to closely follow Jokowi who said he will announce his cabinet lineup on Wednesday.
"But, he finally postponed the announcement. I am afraid investors will make negative speculations, questioning the background of the postponement. They could speculate whether there is any conflict of interests," she stated.
According to Enny, the market players are waiting for Jokowi to fulfill his promise to formulate a predominantly professional and non-transactional cabinet lineup.
Enny claimed that the market players were actually not affected by the 14 days that Jokowi has after his presidential inauguration to announce his cabinet ministers based on the Constitution.
"However, if Jokowi said he will announce his cabinet today, but he fails to do so, then the market can have its speculations and questions," remarked Enny.
However, according to macroeconomic analyst Thomas Ola Langoday of the Kupang-based Widya Mandira University, the delay in the announcement of the cabinet ministers will not automatically affect the market players.
"The delay in the announcement of the cabinet lineup has not yet had a wide impact on the price and the exchange rate of the local rupiah currency, including the stock price index," Thomas claimed here on Thursday.
He noted that the delay has not yet affected the market and investment as the market players understand the reason for the postponement of Jokowis Trisakti Cabinet announcement.
"The market players understand that the president is still looking for men who are clean, competent, and professional," remarked Thomas, the dean of the Economic Faculty of the Widya Mandira University.
He pointed out that market players even viewed the delay as Jokowis efforts to form a clean cabinet, which is favorable for the Indonesian economy.
With the formation of a clean cabinet, the analyst from PT Bahana Securities also forecast that the share price index would reach the 5.3 thousand level by the year-end increase to 5.6 thousand next year.
The market players will continue to harbor high expectations on the cabinet posture, particularly the economic ministerial posts, which should be filled by professionals and technocrats, who are able to reform the structure of the nations economy.
As he still postpones the announcement, Jokowi is advised to not talk too much about his cabinet plan.
"The president had better speak little. He has been in a hurry to disclose that the announcement will be made tomorrow," Martin Hutabarat, a politician of the Indonesia Greater Movement Party (Gerindra), stated.
He said that Jokowi was now under pressure to fulfill his own promise of immediately announcing the names of his cabinet ministers. "If he did not keep his own promises, it will become a challenge for him," he added.
Actually, Jokowi, according to Martin, still has sufficient time before he could announce his cabinet. He has two weeks from the day of his inauguration as president. Martin was convinced that the delay in the announcement of the cabinet would not pose a significant problem for Jokowi. "The problem is when he speaks (makes promises) too soon," the Gerindra politician stated.
In the meantime, political observer Nyoman Subanda of the National Education University of Denpasar said Jokowi, is adopting a cautious approach in selecting the members for his cabinet after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) gave yellow and red marks to his prospective ministers.
Jokowi has earlier submitted a list of 43 prospective ministers to the KPK for background scrutiny. The KPK has returned the results of its examinations to Jokowi, marking red or yellow on prospective ministers who have the potential to be implicated in legal cases.
"I think President Jokowi is being very careful in selecting members of his cabinet lineup, so that he can pick prospective ministers who are clean from corruption. This is a positive step," Nyoman Subanda remarked.
He noted that there is a general public impression that Jokowi was slow in announcing his cabinet ministers. On several occasions since his inauguration as president on Monday, Jokowi said he would soon announce his cabinet structure.
"Jokowi said he would soon make public his cabinet ministers lineup, yet until four days, today since he was inaugurated on Monday, he has not yet announced it," remarked Nyoman Subanda, who is also the dean of the social and political faculty of the National Education University of Denpasar.
He pointed out that the uncertainty of the announcement would, of course, affect the viewpoint of the people who had given their vote to the Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla pair.
"I hope the President would soon announce the structure of his cabinet ministers in accordance with what he had stated during his inaugural speech at the Parliament building," he stated.
(T.A014/KR-BSR/H-YH)
Reporter: Andi Abdussalam
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2014
