Prabowo's Indonesian Cabinet Rejects Expertise For Loyalty
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Foreign Minister Sugiono, a Prabowo loyalist with computer science and business degrees and no diplomatic background, was appointed over a tradition of career diplomats with international relations degrees; within a month, Indonesia signed a November 2024 joint statement with China on "joint development in areas of overlapping claims" in the South China Sea, breaking Indonesia's long-standing "non-claimant" status.
- Sugiono's continued tenure has produced further diplomatic damage: ambassadorial posts in friendly countries and the UN sat vacant for months in mid-2025, and in mid-2026 the Ministry delayed receiving credentials from newly arrived foreign ambassadors until former deputy minister Dino Patti Djalal publicly criticized the delay.
- Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni, whose doctorate is in Political Science with no forestry background, presided over a ministry that continued issuing forest management permits during his tenure; the 2025 floods and landslides in northern Sumatra killed over 1,000 people, left 140 missing, and displaced more than 1 million, with the destruction attributed to deforestation on company concession lands.
- National Nutrition Agency (BGN) was set up in 2024 to run Prabowo's flagship free meals program for students, but none of its four initial leaders — entomologist Dadan Hindayana, journalist Nanik Sudaryati Deyang, and retired military/police generals Lodewyk Pusung and Sony Sanjaya — had any background in nutrition; the program has produced near-weekly food poisoning and mass hospitalization cases, and Dadan, Lodewyk, and Sony were arrested in mid-2026 on corruption charges.
- Prabowo's loyalty networks extend to Taruna Nusantara High School alumni, including Sugiono, Minister of State Secretariat Prasetyo Hadi, and Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya — for Wijaya's appointment, Prabowo revised the Cabinet Secretary post so it was no longer ministerial-level, since active-duty military officers are barred from ministerial roles.
- The expanded deputy minister structure grew to 54 deputy ministers under Prabowo from 19 in the previous cabinet, with some ministries now hosting three deputy ministers; the source notes that even this expansion has failed to prevent repeated foreign affairs blunders, with Sugiono publicly joking that three deputy ministers are "not enough."
Why it matters: Indonesia's governance is paying a concrete human cost for loyalty-over-merit appointments: over 1,000 deaths in Sumatra floods linked to a Forestry Ministry lacking forestry expertise, weekly food poisoning cases from a nutrition agency led by an entomologist and a journalist, and a diplomatic corps that has broken with decades of "non-claimant" South China Sea posture — all under a cabinet that has expanded to 54 deputy ministers to compensate for ministers with no relevant background.
