Anticorruption programs ‘on sale’

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Drawing of election serial numbers - General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Arief Budiman (center), accompanied by KPU commissioner Viryan (left) and KPU commissioner Evi Novida Ginting Manik (right), poses for a photograph with the two candidate pairs participating in the 2019 presidential election, Joko Widodo-Ma\'ruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, after the drawing of the serial numbers at the KPU offices in Central Jakarta on Friday (21/09/2018) evening. At the public event, the duo of Joko Widodo and Ma’ruf got serial number 01 and Prabowo-Sandiaga got number 02.

Anticorruption programs offered by the candidate pairs of the 2019 presidential election tend to merely be tools to attract voters.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The two presidential and vice-presidential candidate pairs competing in the 2019 presidential election have interesting offers to solve corruption in Indonesia. However, there are few in-depth discussions on their offers, which has caused the public to be skeptical over whether the programs will materialize.

The spokesman of the national campaign team of Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno, Andre Rosiade, said on Wednesday (14/11/2018) that corruption eradication would become the main priority outside the agenda in the economic sector.

In order to show a commitment to corruption eradication, within the first 100 days of the Prabowo-Sandiaga government, Andre added, a fact-finding team would be established to thoroughly investigate the case of an acid attack against Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigator Novel Baswedan on April 11, 2017. The investigation into the case has thus far not been finished.

Meanwhile, in the documents on the vision and mission of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Ma’ruf Amin, which were handed over to the General Elections Commission (KPU), the pair promised to evaluate and synchronize regulations to strengthen corruption eradication.

In connection with this, the deputy chairman of the national campaign team of Jokowi-Ma’ruf, Arsul Sani, said that the revision of regulations with regard to corruption eradication could not be directly associated with efforts to weaken the KPK. “Regulations need changing when they need adjustments, right? What has to be debated is what content will be changed in the regulations,” he said.

Several efforts have been made to revise the KPK regulation. The regulation has also been brought to the Supreme Court for judicial review on several occasions.

Besides the discourse to revise the KPK regulation, during the current government of Jokowi-Kalla, there has also been an inquiry right against the KPK. Proposed revisions to the regulation tend to weaken the authority of the KPK. For example, proposed ideas include the formation of a council of supervisors that regulates the KPK’s authority to wiretap through permits from the supervisor council, limiting the age of the KPK as an ad hoc institution, and eliminating independent investigators from the KPK.

Based on Kompas’ record, the proposals to revise the KPK regulation and the inquiry committee are supported by political parties, which now support both the pairs of Jokowi-Ma’ruf and Prabowo-Sandiaga.

Campaign promises

KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah said statements to support the eradication of corruption should not merely become campaign jargon.

A researcher of Indonesia Corruption Watch, Donal Fariz, said that, from experience in several general elections, anticorruption programs and campaign promises tend to be used only as tools to win votes.

Education

Transparency International Indonesia (TII) program coordinator Wawan Suyatmiko said the anticorruption attitude would be more measurable if anticorruption education was focused on by the two candidates. Instead, anticorruption education issues have not been a point of focus.

“The two candidate pairs seem to have not seen anticorruption education as something that is directly linked to their slogans[…]. Actually, without anticorruption education, it is impossible to create a climate for corruption eradication and prevention,” he said.

TII secretary-general Dadang Trisasongko added that anticorruption education was rooted in honesty and respect to public rights.

“Anticorruption education will become the basis for all anticorruption programs. Because, in any rearrangement of a system that is not accompanied by changes in attitude and behavior of its people, any good system can still be tricked, engineered, or even changed by those who do not want a good system,” he said.

Kris Nugroho, a political science lecturer at Airlangga University, Surabaya, said the issue of law enforcement, especially in terms of corruption, was considered important by voters. Corruption is seen as a problem because it has caused legal injustice. However, he also acknowledge there were concerns from the campaign teams to discuss the issue in-depth, because there are members in the two camps who may be involved in corrupt practices. (GAL/REK/IAN/AGE/BOW/APA)