Ex-District Head Azwar Anas Appointed as State Adm. Reform Minister
Jakarta. President Joko Widodo on Tuesday appointed a former regent in East Java as the new State Administrative Reform Minister replacing Tjahjo Kumolo who passed away on June 1.
Azwar Anas, the two-term regent of Banyuwangi, became the latest member of the cabinet after heading the Policy Board for Government Goods and Services Procurement for just nine months.
He rose to prominence at a very young age by getting appointed as a member of the People’s Consultative Assembly at the age of 24 years old in 1997. Azwar was the youngest member of the assembly at that time.
During the Soeharto era, some members of the country’s highest law-making body weren’t elected but were appointees from certain groups of civil professions or the military/police.
After losing his bid in the 1999 legislative election -- the first in the post-Soeharto era -- Azwar finally won his second attempt to win a seat in the House of Representatives for the National Awakening Party (PKB) in 2024.
Azwar ran in the Banyuwangi district head election in 2010 and won by a landslide, repeating the success five years later. However, in the 2015 election, he already switched party to the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
Two years before his second term expired, Azwar was nominated as a running mate for Saifullah Yusuf in the East Java gubernatorial election. But he abruptly withdrew from the election after lewd photos purported to be him circulated on the internet.
Azwar has a personal wealth of Rp 16.4 billion, according to the latest data from the Corruption Eradication Commission.
Tags: Keywords: