Indonesian president makes third reshuffle in his cabinet

JAKARTA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo replaced a minister and several senior officials in his cabinet, making it his third cabinet reshuffle in his administration since 2014.

The president replaced Social Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa with an executive of Golkar Party, Idrus Marham following Khofifah's candidacy to run in East java province's governor election.

Khofifah is a minister from the National Awakening Party (PKB), a political party supporting the president. Idrus' Golkar Party also supports the president's administration.

Besides the social minister, the president also replaced Head of Presidential Staff Teten Masduki, installed the new Air Forces Commander and a member of presidential advisory board.

President Widodo appointed the nation's former military commander Moeldoko to replace Teten who would later on becoming the president's special aide.

The new Air Forces Commander was Air Marshall Yuyu Sutisna who assumed the position left by Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto. The latter was appointed as the nation's military commander a few months ago, while Yuyu was his deputy in the air forces.

Replacing the recently deceased member of Presidential Advisory Board (Wantimpres) Hasyim Muzadi, the president installed former army general Agum Gumelar.

Gumelar had served several ministerial posts in the previous governments, several sports associations and commanded the army's special unit of Kopassus.

Prior to the current reshuffle, the president did it twice in August 2015 and July 27, 2016 respectively. The reshuffles were conducted by replacing the ministers or rotating them to other posts.

In the first reshuffle, the Indonesian president replaced six ministers, while in the second one he replaced 12 of a total 34 ministers in his cabinet. Enditem