Finally. So grateful that we have Jokowi as the president-elect. Selamat, Pak!
Now, he is assembling his new cabinet. Strangely, however, he is crowd-sourcing it, using online polling. (To be fair, it's not really crowd-sourcing, as presumably he will still have the final say).
And the social media embraces this PR gimmick so happily: "Oh, this is the first president who crowd-source his cabinet assembly. Cool!" - and many other similar comments to that effect.
Is this actually a good thing? I don't think so. Picking ministers is president's prerogative, as the polling says in its intro. Correct. But, the intro continues, "that does not mean the people cannot participate". Wait a minute. Sounds nice, but Pak Jokowi is actually creating an unnecessary problem here. If he has to listen to what people say for every decision he makes, it is not difficult to imagine that this new administration will walk like a tortoise onward. Not only that, he is offering a precedence. The next time he needs to make other decisions, the same people might as well demand a poll. Crowdsource is good. But not always.
An analogy might be useful. One thing that you expect from a CEO is the ability to make strategic decision (of course, decision can be wrong, that's a risk). But does he or she have to consult all the stakeholders for every decision? Does s/he have to ask the opinion of each and every employee when s/he want to appoint in manager in the office?
Dear Pak Jokowi, just pick your aides. We trust you. And yes, we will keep criticising you - and your cabinet for that matter.
