One Year As Vice President Jokowi, What Has Ma'ruf Amin Done?

JAKARTA - During one year of Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin's administration, Vice President Ma'ruf Amin was not very visible in public. Many parties feel that he did not take much of a role. So what exactly was Abah doing, as he is usually called, during his one year tenure?

Not a few people, especially netizens feel that Ma'ruf Amin is more silent. This can be seen from some of the satire on Twitter social media.

The owner of the @jagadhj account, for example, last August insinuated the vice president who rarely appeared in public. "Keep silent until people think you are vice president," he wrote.

In addition, the @shitegoblin account owner also wrote something similar. "Just ignore the introverted Vice President Maruf Amin," he tweeted.

This public opinion does not make Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Masduki Baidlowi worried. He didn't even care about Ma'ruf Amin's opinion that he was called a missing person.

The reason is, he saw for himself that Abah continued to work from morning to evening. According to him, the thing that made Ma'ruf's name not raised in the public was because the Vice President did not have a team of buzzers.

"The vice president has been working well under the surface so far. And quite busy, accompanied by the Vice President and his team during this time are earnest and busy, "said Baidlowi as quoted by Bisnis.

However, Ma'ruf Amin's assumption that he is more silent is actually not entirely correct. We have tried to record Abah's agenda for the past three months, from August to October 20.

The total agenda for the Vice President, which we recorded from the wapresri.go.id page, is 155. In a period of nearly three months, it turns out that one-third or 51 of Abah's agendas are busy with video recording activities.

The video recordings made by Abah range from remarks at coordination meetings between government agencies, congratulations on birthdays to state institutions and community organizations, to being the main speaker at various campus events.

In addition to video recordings, Ma'ruf Amin is also diligent in attending virtual conferences held by the government and the private sector. There are 23 times that number. Most recently, Abah gave a speech at the Launching of the Halal Product Marketing and Management Digitalization Training Program for MSMEs and gave a scientific oration at the Diponegoro University Anniversary Commemoration.

Then Ma'ruf Amin's third most agenda was routine activities like a vice president: closed meetings. From August to October 20, it is recorded that he has attended limited meetings 23 times.

Political Observer of Al-Azhar University, Ujang Komaruddin, said that Ma'ruf Amin's performance was still lacking. Ujang at least criticized the government's performance in the law enforcement and democracy sectors.

Regarding law enforcement, Ujang gave an example related to the crippling of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) by revising the KPK Law. "So law enforcement is increasingly messy and unclear. The law can eventually be controlled by the executive and legislature," Ujang told VOI.

Apart from that, he also criticized the democratic climate that we are currently experiencing. According to him, democracy currently only exists in theory.

"Many critical minorities have been arrested. Many critical figures have also been reported and arrested. Democracy has experienced a decline," said Ujang.

According to Ujang, who is also the Executive Director of the Indonesia Political Review (IPR), it is proof that Ma'ruf Amin's contribution is still small. "Maybe because Ma'ruf Amin was given the task of Jokowi to only take care of sharia-based economic matters. So that other national issues are not visible," he concluded.