April 3, 2024
JAKARTA -The idea to appoint President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to lead a “transition team” tasked with smoothing out the transfer of power to his successor president-elect Prabowo Subianto has been met with a cold shoulder by Prabowo’s camp.
Prabowo, who ran alongside Jokowi’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka in February’s election, is scheduled to assume office in October, barring any successful challenges to the election results at the Constitutional Court.
The suggestion that Jokowi lead Prabowo’s presidential transition team was first touted by a presidential staffer who said that a transition team would be established in the future to ensure that the presidential succession “can go well and can be done in a quick manner”.
“God willing [the team] will be directly led by President Jokowi. We’re formulating details about the team, including its authority,” Ali Mochtar Ngabalin, a lead expert staffer at the Executive Office of the President, told the press on Monday.
Jokowi was the first Indonesian president to introduce the concept of a presidential transition team. When he first came to power in 2014, Jokowi recruited a group of experts and politicians to help him prepare for his incoming presidency and to ensure that his administration could work effectively on its first day in office.
The team, led by former trade minister Rini Soemarno, was tasked with formulating effective spending of the state budget, designing Jokowi’s cabinet, drawing up policies based on the president-elect’s vision and mission on the campaign trail and examining problems and challenges in various strategic issues.
Despite the seemingly important role, members of Prabowo’s camp said that the establishment of such a team was unnecessary as the Gerindra Party chairman had been a part of Jokowi’s cabinet for five years and had repeatedly promised to continue all the outgoing president’s policies.
Viva Yoga Mauladi, a spokesperson for Prabowo’s campaign team, said that as of now Prabowo’s camp does not have any plan to establish a transition team for the upcoming transition of power.
“The transition process is underway and will be carried out without establishing any special team. All political parties supporting Prabowo’s presidential bid are part of the current government coalition and since the start of his campaign, Prabowo has been committed to the continuation of Jokowi’s policies,” Viva told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Prabowo himself has also said that he is confident that his transition into the country’s top office would go “very smoothly” because he has been part of “team Jokowi”.
Political observer Adi Prayitno said forming a presidential transition team was unwarranted, considering Prabowo won the election on a platform of continuity.
“A transition team is needed only if the new president has a different political stance from his predecessor. We don’t want to have any sort of impression that Jokowi established a transition team as an effort to control the upcoming administration,” he said.
However, another analyst, Wasisto Raharjo Jati of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), believes that a transition team is still important to align Prabowo’s and Jokowi’s policies and to maintain a close communication between the two.
Earlier, Prabowo’s camp pledged to give Jokowi an “influential role” in shaping the next administration’s cabinet, but had so far failed to provide any details on the promise.