Jokowi Calls His Ministers Are Better Now, Really?

President Joko Widodo (Photo: Twitter @jokowi)

JAKARTA - Some time ago President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) berated the ministers in his cabinet and threatened to carry out an overhaul or reshuffle. But he never did it, instead calling his minister's performance improving at this time.

Through an interview that aired on Kompas TV on Monday night, November 16, President Jokowi stated the reason why he had not reshuffled his ministers in the first year of his second term. Whereas in the first period, not even a year, the former Governor of DKI Jakarta reshuffled a number of ministers.

According to him, the teamwork between ministers is now good and this is different from his cabinet in the 2014-2019 period. So, it is for this reason that he has not yet carried out a reshuffle.

"The performance of these ministers is team work, not individual work. Yes, this is better from teamwork. It's better," said Jokowi in the special interview.

Jokowi agreed that he had threatened to change ministers if there were those who performed poorly. However, according to him, the performance between the ministers was quite good and it was evident from the increase in economic growth in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.

"In the third quarter, our economic growth was minus 3.49 percent. It means better. The minus 3.49 figure is supported by government consumption," he explained.

Even so, Jokowi did not deny the possibility that a cabinet reshuffle would always be open. "Yes, it could. It could be next week, it could be next month, it could be next year," he said with a smile.

President Jokowi (Photo: Twitter @jokowi)

Is it true that the minister's performance has improved?

President Jokowi may say that his minister's performance is improving. However, a number of surveys that have been released recently have suggested otherwise.

For example, the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) through the Indef Datalyst Center, which released the results of their study in the headline Sentiment Analysis on Institutions, Behavior and Government Performance, showed that 7 ministers in the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet received negative sentiments from the public.

"There are 7 ministers who have the most negative sentiments in the public because of their policies, actions, behavior and statements," said senior researcher Indef Didik J Rachbini in a written statement, Monday, November 16.

He explained, of the seven ministers, the highest number of negative sentiments was obtained by the Minister of Health (Menkes) Terawan Agus Putranto at 74 percent. Next is the Minister of Agriculture (Mentan) Syahrul Yasin Limpo at 57 percent, the Minister of Communication and Informatics (Menkominfo) Johnny G Plate at 55 percent, and the Minister of Religion (Menag) Fachrul Razi at 53 percent.

Next, there is also Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Edhy Prabowo with negative sentiment at 47 percent, Minister of Education and Culture (Mendikbud) Nadiem Makarim at 44 percent, and Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani who also received negative sentiment of 44 percent from the public.

Didik explained that this negative sentiment could occur after collecting 2.18 million data in the form of conversations about the president, vice president, and ministers. This big data system method is one of the methods used by Indef in addition to surveys, secondary data analysis to group discussion forums.

Apart from Indef, the Indonesia Political Opinion (IPO) also issued a survey on October 29. In a survey that was held on 12-23 October with 1,200 respondents throughout Indonesia and the method used was multistage random sampling with a margin of error of approximately 2.9 percent with a 95 percent confidence level.

For the reshuffle discourse, the majority of the public, or 57 percent, want Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto to be replaced from his position. Furthermore, four other ministers deemed worthy of being reshuffled were the Minister of Communication and Information, Johnny G Plate, 55 percent, Menkumham Yasonna Laoly 47 percent, Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo 44 percent, and Minister of Education and Culture (Mendikbud) Nadiem Makarim 40 percent.

Not only based on the results of the survey, the Director of the Indonesia Political Review (IPR), Ujang Komarudin, said that the performance of ministers in the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet was still very good, far from improving. So, he was confused by Jokowi's statement, which said that the performance of his assistants was getting better after he got angry.

"How can the minister's performance be seen from? What size? Just because of anger, then his performance has improved," said Ujang when contacted by VOI.

In his opinion, Jokowi's statement was made only to build an opinion, "As if his ministers have performed well even though they are still successful," he said.

Even so, Ujang understood that the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic could have caused Jokowi to postpone his desire to reshuffle. So, he tries to build a perception by stating that the current ministers' performance has improved so that no party is blamed when there is no reshuffle until some time to come.

In addition, he also assessed that Jokowi has not yet carried out a reshuffle in order to maintain the political climate so that no uproar occurs in the midst of this pandemic. "Especially if Jokowi reshuffles he will also lose support from the reshuffled ministers. Especially if the reshuffled ministers are party ministers, he will not dare," he concluded.