Public policy experts criticize President Prabowo Subianto’s move to revoke two established regulations that were implemented upon receiving widespread negative responses from the public, alleging that the regulations were issued to test the public’s reaction to certain policies.
Trubus Rahadiansyah, Public Policy Observer from Trisakti University, said that implementing the testing the water strategy is a common action in a government.
However, if this approach is carried out continuously, it can affect the level of public trust and acceptance of the government.
“The public will gradually become suspicious and consider the government to be lacking coordination,” Trubus said as quoted by Katadata.co.id on Friday, February 7, 2025.
Trubus assessed that using this strategy method before making a full decision could weaken trust in the president. However, this assumes that the minister’s strategic policy requires approval from the President.
“Because it is impossible for a minister to make a strategic policy without the president knowing about it,” he said.
Furthermore, he advised President Prabowo not to repeatedly implement the method over and over, citing problems with public ethics.
“The president who cancels what his subordinates have implemented, in terms of public policy, there is a problem with public ethics,” he added.
Sofyano Zakaria, Director of the Center for Public Policy (Puskepi), said that the government has the right to postpone or cancel a decision that triggers public reaction or rejection.
“If a decision that is thrown to the public is rejected, then the government must postpone or cancel it,” Sofyano said.
So far, Prabowo has annulled two policies, namely the implementation of the Ministerial Regulation on the 12 percent value added tax (VAT) and a ban on retailers selling 3 kilogram (kg) Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) canisters.
