Formation
The Second Amir Sjarifuddin Cabinet, under Prime Minister Amir Sjarifuddin, fell on 23 January 1948 following popular outrage over the Renville Agreement, which the populace considered having given away too much of the nascent country's political power. Mohammad Hatta, then serving as vice president, was asked by President Sukarno to form a new cabinet which united the country's political parties. Hatta kept ten members of the previous cabinet, although he did away with the deputy ministers and removed ministers with leftist leanings.
The cabinet was formed on 29 January 1948, with Hatta serving concurrently as vice president and prime minister. It formally took office on 2 February. Its mandate focused on dealing with the Renville agreement, developing the nation, and working towards a consolidated government. With General Sudirman, commander in chief of the military, Hatta worked to reduce leftist influences in the armed forces, which had been exploited during Sjarifuddin's cabinet. However, Hatta's work was greatly weakened by continued division over the Renville Agreement.
The Indonesian legal scholar and politician Bibit Suprapto writes that the Hatta Cabinets were not truly parliamentary, as Hatta continued to serve in/ the executive branch of the government, but also not truly presidential, as Hatta formally held the title of prime minister.
Read more about this topic: First Hatta Cabinet
Famous quotes containing the word formation:
“Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful—the formation of fixed habits of work.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
“The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)