The victory of a number of corruption suspects in the regional elections shows that some Indonesians are still tolerant of corruption. To overcome this situation, a regulation is needed to ensure that candidates who are in legal trouble over abusing their authority are not elected.
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ANTARA FOTO/M AGUNG RAJASA
Officials open ballot boxes in Bandung, West Java, on Thursday (5/7/2018) for a recount of votes cast in the West Java gubernatorial election. The recount was based on vote-counting in each subdistrict by the polling station commission in Bandung.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The victory of a number of corruption suspects in the regional elections in 2018 shows that some Indonesians are still tolerant of corruption. To overcome this situation, which threatens the quality of democracy, a regulation is needed to ensure that candidates who are in legal trouble over abusing their authority are not elected as regional heads.
In the 2018 regional elections, at least two candidates won despite being suspects. They are Ahmad Hidayat Mus, who ran for governor of North Maluku, and Syahri Mulyo who ran in the regional elections in Tulungagung, East Java.
The two men are currently being detained by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Syahri, who is backed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Nasdem Party was arrested on voting day, June 27, 2018. Meanwhile, Hidayat Mus competed in the regional elections with the support of the Golkar Party and the United Development Party (PPP).
Corruption suspects also dominated in the 2017 regional elections. At that time, Umar Abdul Samiun won the regional elections in Buton, Southeast Sulawesi, even though he had been named a suspect of bribing a Constitutional Court judge in a dispute over the Buton regional elections in 2011.
In accordance with Law No. 10/2016 on regional elections, suspects who win the elections will still be inaugurated as regional heads. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo usually inaugurates governors at the Presidential Palace, while regents and mayors are inaugurated in the provincial capitals.
Tolerant
A political lecturer at the University of Airlangga in Surabaya, Kris Nugroho, said in a phone call from Jakarta on Friday (6/7/2018) that the victory of a number of corruption suspects in the regional elections showed that public awareness on the issue of corruption was still low.
This is seen in the anticorruption behavior index released by the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas). According to the index, in 2017 public attitudes on corruption stood at 3.7 on a scale of 0-5. Based on the index, 0 indicates behavior which strongly supports corruption, while 5 represents anticorruption behavior.
"Our society is at 3.7 on the scale. This means tolerance of corruption is still widespread," said Transparency International Indonesia research manager Wawan Suyatmiko.
The low awareness of the danger of corruption, Wawan added, directly correlated with the rise of money politics in regional elections.
According to a study conducted by Founding Fathers House (FFH), 61.8 percent of people were still tolerant of money politics in regional elections in 2015. That number increased to 64.9 percent in regional elections in 2017. This type of money politics is usually carried out by providing basic needs, electronic equipment or money ranging from Rp 25,000 to Rp 500,000.
FFH researcher Dian Permata said the rising trend of tolerant attitudes toward money politics in the 2017 regional elections compared to those in 2015 was a strong signal that money politics is still tainting regional elections in Indonesia. "It means there has been no change in people’s attitudes, and even that tolerant attitudes toward money politics continue to rise. It is a big job for people, policymakers and election organizers to prevent money politics in the community," Dian said.
Legal intervention
The advocacy director of Gadjah Mada University’s Center for Anticorruption Studies, Oce Madril, said that in the short term, legal intervention was needed to ensure that problematic candidates were not elected in the regional elections. Because if this issue is completely down to the voters, it will depend on many factors, including access to community education. "Legal solutions are needed to make it possible to cancel the nominations of candidates involved in official crimes, such as corruption," Oce said.
General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Arief Budiman agreed with the idea. According to him, election design can help provide quality candidates. He cited as an example that when many regional head candidates are arrested by the KPK, political parties could replace them.
"The KPU even proposes a disqualification, not a replacement of candidates. That way, candidates would be more careful because if they are named suspects, they could be disqualified," said Arief.
According to the national coordinator of the Voter Education Network for the People, Sunanto, disqualification rules for corruption suspects are urgently needed. The reason is that when candidates who are corruption suspects are allowed to run for office, voters will think they do not have a serious legal problem so they remain eligible to be selected. They even frequently mention in their campaign materials that naming the candidate as a suspect is a form of criminalization. Their suspect status is even used to gain sympathy.
At the same time, political parties supporting the suspects do not want to cancel their candidacy or write them off. Political parties do not withdraw their nomination even though the candidate has been named a suspect.
This state of affairs ultimately makes corruption difficult to eradicate in the government. A number of regional heads elected in the regional elections in 2015 and 2017 were proven to have been prosecuted for corruption.
