Indonesian President Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi, has carried out a cabinet reshuffle just two months before his term ends, boosting officials who have championed major projects with potentially dire environmental impacts.
The Aug. 19 reshuffle, the fourth in the past 12 months, brings in loyalists to Prabowo Subianto, Jokowi’s ally and successor, who will take office in October. The shakeup aims to ensure policy continuity as the country transitions from the Jokowi to the Prabowo administrations.
A key change in the latest shakeup was the appointment of Bahlil Lahadalia, a businessman and formerly the investment minister, to minister of energy and mines. As Indonesia’s investment minister, Bahlil made several controversial decisions impacting the country’s forests and Indigenous peoples.
For instance, he headed a task force to establish massive sugar plantations in the eastern region of Papua, home to Indonesia’s last great expanse of rainforest. He also led a plan to develop Rempang Island in Sumatra into an integrated industrial, trade and tourism area, despite protests from the island’s Indigenous and local communities. The plan includes a $12 billion investment in a glass and solar panel factory to be built by Chinese industrial giant Xinyi Glass. Earlier this year, Bahlil spearheaded a controversial plan to allow religious organizations to obtain mining permits.
As energy and mines minister, Bahlil has committed to enhancing Indonesia’s production of oil and gas and natural resources. He faces allegations of self-dealing and corruption in the revocation and reissuance of mining permits, according to reporting by investigative news outlet Tempo.
Rosan Perkasa Roeslani, a businessman and Prabowo’s campaign chief, takes over as investment minister. Roeslani told reporters he would seek investors for the controversial new capital city, Nusantara, being built in Borneo. Environmentalists and communities have raised concerns about the $32 billion development in a region that’s home to Indigenous communities who depend on intact forests, and the impact on species such as critically endangered Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and endangered proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus).
Another new cabinet appointment is Supratman Andi Agtas, former chair of parliament’s legislative committee and member of Prabowo’s Gerindra party, as minister of law. Another Gerindra member, Angga Raka Prabowo, was named deputy minister of communications, while Dadan Hindayana, an academic, will head the newly established National Nutrition Agency that aims to implement Prabowo’s free school meals program.
The reshuffle saw the removal of two ministers from the PDI-P, the party that has long backed Jokowi but which fell out with him over his support for Prabowo in February’s election: Arifin Tasrif, the former energy minister, and Yasonna Laoly, the former law minister, were cut in what some see as a purge.
The changes “are needed to prepare and support the government transition so it works well, smooth, and effectively,” Ari Dwipayana, a presidential palace official, said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Banner image of President Joko Widodo (public domain)
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