Prabowo's answer to a failing programme is another loyalist

The National Nutrition Agency has now had three chiefs. Dadan Hindayana was detained with two of his deputies over alleged corruption. Nanik Sudaryati Deyang, who replaced him, resigned in July. The job then went to Sudaryono, a senior Gerindra politician and former deputy agriculture minister who has been close to President Prabowo Subianto for years. He moved fast: 261 staff dismissed, 833 kitchens closed, and 13,000 new ones planned in remote areas. The food poisoning cases, though, have kept coming in several cities.

Made Supriatma, writing in Fulcrum, the site run by Singapore's ISEAS institute, sees a pattern rather than one difficult agency. After the riots of August 2025, Prabowo made retired Lieutenant General Djamari Chaniago his coordinating minister for political and security affairs. Cooperatives Minister Budi Arie Setiadi was replaced by Ferry Juliantono, a Gerindra deputy chairman and another long-standing ally. Retired Lieutenant General Glenny Kairupan took over as president director of Garuda Indonesia. The common thread is trust, not track record in the work itself.

Supriatma's point is not that loyalty is worthless. A president who wants an order followed will get it followed faster this way, and it keeps rival factions from taking root. What it does not do is fix the thing that broke. The meals programme was restructured and children still got sick, which suggests the problem sits in supply, inspection and money rather than in who signs the letters. There is a political bill too: shutting 833 kitchens angered the operators who ran them, and some of those operators have ties to parties inside Prabowo's own coalition.

Why it matters

If your child eats a state-supplied meal, the safety of that food now depends on an agency being rebuilt by its third leader in under a year, and the restructuring has not stopped the poisoning cases. For anyone running a kitchen, a cooperative or a supplier contract, the lesson is that a change at the top can cancel your arrangement quickly. Watch whether the 13,000 promised new kitchens actually open in remote districts, because that is the test of whether this reshuffle was about delivery or about control.