By Prashanth Parameswaran
Jakarta will appoint a successor to lead its military in the next few months.
As Indonesia’s outspoken military (TNI) chief General Moeldoko nears his mandatory retirement age next month, the conversation has moved on to who will be replacing him (See: “Indonesia Keen on Big Brother Role in ASEAN and Beyond: Official”).
Selecting a candidate is normally a fairly straightforward process. Candidates for the top TNI post should be flag officers who have held the position of chief of staff in one of the TNI’s three forces – the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. The current officers would be Army chief of staff Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, Navy chief of staff Adm. Ade Supandi and Air Force chief of staff Air Chief Marshal Agus Supriatna.
Furthermore, since the end of the Suharto era, the post has been rotated in an Army-Navy-Army-Air Force pattern which has held until today. For instance, Moeldoko, who had been army chief of staff, took over in 2013 from Adm. Agus Suhartono, who has been chief of staff of the Indonesian navy. Following this pattern, since Moeldoko was from the Army, the next TNI chief should be from the Air Force, which would suggest that Air Force chief of staff Air Chief Marshal Agus Supriatna should be Indonesia’s next military chief.
But on Wednesday, The Jakarta Post reported that Coordinating Political Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno had said that Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had yet to make up his mind and that the next TNI chief may not necessarily be from the air force.
Read the full story at The Diplomat