Jakarta –
The Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia (RI Ambassador) to Panama, Sukmo Harsono, highlighted the cawapres’ statement Mahfud Md who said that the recruitment of Indonesian diplomats must be reviewed because sometimes the diplomats were entrusted by the party. Sukmo said Mahfud made a big mistake.
“Responding to Prof Mahfud “That Diplomats need to be improved, because it seems that they are declining due to the entrustment of political parties, which is a big mistake,” said Sukmo Harsono, Saturday (23/12/2023).
Sukmo said that diplomats with political party backgrounds actually have patterns and thinking that are out of the box. Apart from that, Sukmo believes that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kemlu) is suitable for the career diplomats it has.
“Diplomats from political parties actually have work patterns and thinking that are out of the box, they are full of experience in their respective fields, whether in the private sector, retired TNI/Polri officers or even qualified heads of professional organizations,” said Sukmo.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs really understands how to distribute great career diplomats placed in countries that suit their diplomatic needs, as well as non-career diplomats,” he said.
Not only that, he said that currently the issue of economic diplomacy is being emphasized by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). He believes that currently what is needed is to increase the portion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ budget so that the diplomatic work system must be more flexible.
“Pak Jokowi emphasized the issue of economic diplomacy, even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave a large portion so that economic diplomacy was intensively carried out, such as expanding the Central American market by holding Inalac in the form of market expansion,” he said.
“Currently what is needed is that the budget portion for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be increased significantly so that the budget is not used up just for operations. This includes the work system for diplomats which must be more flexible in the use of the budget even though it still has to comply with regulations. So Prof Mahfud should not dichotomy between career diplomats and “non-career, especially in terms of economic diplomacy,” he said.
Sukmo Harsono himself was the UN Secretary General when Jokowi appointed him as the Indonesian Ambassador to Panama.
Mahfud Highlights Diplomat Recruitment
It was previously known that vice presidential candidate number 3 Mahfud Md said that the recruitment of Indonesian diplomats must be reviewed. He mentioned that sometimes diplomats are entrusted by the party so they don’t understand the work of diplomacy.
“I think the current diplomat recruitment system needs to be reviewed. In the past, our diplomats were good, now sometimes there are deposits from parties, if they haven’t been from the party, they haven’t been in, it hasn’t been ratified, in the DPR this party hasn’t been in,” said Mahfud when responding to responses from vice presidential candidate number 1 Muhaimin Iskandar regarding diplomacy at JCC Senayan, Jakarta, Friday (22/12/2023).
Mahfud said that diplomats sometimes did not understand after being given assignments. Mahfud promised to regulate the recruitment of diplomats.
“Well, after being given an unclear assignment, he didn’t understand, he didn’t have an understanding of the basics of diplomacy. So if I was given the authority, later this diplomacy would be reorganized so that the recruitment would really be people who meet the requirements,” he said.
(dwia/dnu)
2023-12-23 00:57:07
#Indonesian #Ambassador #Panama #Mahfud #Wrong #Party #Entrusted #Diplomats
