President Joko Widodo on Monday evening dismissed, with honor, recently appointed Energy and Natural Resources (ESDM) Minister Arcandra Tahar after it came to light that Arcandra held a US passport after going through the naturalization process there in 2012. Arcandra held his post for a mere 19 days.
State Secretary Pratikno announced Arcandra’s dismissal in a press conference last night, saying, “After hearing from various sources, the president came to the decision to honorably discharge Arcandra Tahar from the position of ESDM minister.”
Pratikno added that Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Panjaitan is temporarily filling in for the vacant ESDM minister role until a permanent replacement for Arcandra is found.
Many observers criticized Jokowi’s administration for failing to do basic due diligence, like checking to make sure their ministerial appointees were actually Indonesian citizens, but the State Palace denied any negligence on their part in electing Arcandra as ESDM minister.
“Don’t see it that way. We see it that the president was responsive towards a problem that arose,” said Presidential Spokesman Johan Budi, as quoted by Okezone following Arcandra’s dismissal.
Despite Johan’s protestations, it’s obvious that people are seeing this as an embarrassing episode for Jokowi’s administration. In fact, the hashtag #JokowiPresidenAmatiran (#JokowiIsAnAmateurPresident) became a trending topic on Twitter in Indonesia during the fallout of Arcandra’s scandal and his eventual dismissal.
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I can’t imagine how embarrassing this is for my Indonesia in the eyes of the world.
The problem isn’t with Arcandra. He was just a victim of an amateur president.
Similar criticism towards Jokowi also came from various Indonesian political figures such as former Law and Human Rights minister (a position which oversees immigration matters) and prospective Jakarta governor candidate Yusril Ihza Mahendra, who tweeted these scathing words about the president:
When will the people of this nation realize that this country should be led by people who understand how to run a country, not by amateurs?
President Jokowi should ask himself if he’s capable of running the country in accordance to the constitution.
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