By Jacob Thomases
Rally to support KPK. Source: Ivanatman’s flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.
Two of Indonesia’s most prominent institutions, the National Police and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), are locked in their third public row in seven years. This time, the clash has tarnished the reputation of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, exposed a severe crisis within his coalition, and dragged other institutions into the fray.
The current controversy began with Jokowi’s nomination of Budi Gunawan in January to be National Police chief. Shortly after the nomination, the KPK named Budi a graft suspect for having allegedly accepted millions of dollars in bribes during his tenure as head of the police’s career development bureau from 2004 to 2006.
Three days later, scandalous photographs of KPK chairman Abraham Samad appeared online, followed by a series of police investigations into the KPK. Abraham was accused and cleared of illegal gun possession, then charged with falsifying documents to make a citizen appear to be a member of his family in order to get a passport. His deputy Bambang Widjojanto was charged with suborning perjury as a lawyer in 2010. Police have also opened investigations into as many as 20 other KPK commissioners.
Jokowi has responded by dropping Budi’s nomination, suspending Abraham and Bambang, and appointing three interim commissioners more accommodating to the police. He continues to urge calm, and has asked the police to refrain from seeking retribution against the KPK, but has done little to enforce those edicts and is now being accused of sitting on his hands.
The atmosphere in Jakarta is tense, with the media portraying the conflict between the police and the KPK as a battle for the soul of Indonesia. Rank-and-file KPK investigators have received death threats, while senior police officers who may have secretly cooperated with the KPK are reportedly being weeded out by the police department’s internal affairs division.
Similar standoffs have occurred before. In 2012, Djoko Susilo, a high-ranking police officer, was charged by the KPK with orchestrating a fraudulent purchase of driving simulators. In response, three hundred armed police officers surrounded the KPK’s headquarters in an attempt to arrest the lead investigator in the case. They were only stopped by a crowd of pro-KPK demonstrators who had shown up to block the entrances to the building.
Indonesia has long been plagued by corruption at all levels, including within the powerful police force, the parliament, and various government agencies. It ranks 107 out of 175 countries in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index issued by Transparency International. Against this backdrop, the KPK has been effective in taking down high-profile corrupt officials, and has been continuously ranked the most trusted institution in Indonesia.
Jokowi has disappointed supporters with his neutral stance on the latest controversy. He introduced innovative approaches to fighting corruption as governor of Jakarta, such as allowing people to pay taxes online and issuing welfare payments via electronic cards in an effort to prevent officials from demanding bribes. Jokowi is also known for being personally clean, going so far as to forfeit a guitar given to him by the rock band Metallica. Upon his presidential election victory, he asked the KPK to vet all of his cabinet appointees and rejected those not approved by the agency. Yet he has not defended the KPK since it came under attack in January.
Jokowi appears paralyzed in part because of his own party, the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P). Many believe he was pushed to nominate Budi by party chairwoman Megawati Sukarnoputri, for whom Budi worked in the past. Some of the recent charges leveled at KPK commissioners came from PDI-P party officials. Taking the KPK’s side would be a repudiation of the party and Megawati in particular.
Unless he takes a stand against further retaliation by the police, Jokowi risks allowing an environment of impunity to take hold again. The National Police are already expanding the scope of their campaign for retribution, filing a subpoena against the independent National Commission on Human Rights and pursuing legal measures against all of its commissioners for releasing the results of an investigation into KPK deputy Bambang’s arrest. The police have also opened an investigation Tempo magazine for a report on the suspicious bank accounts of Budi Waseso, who heads the National Police’s detective division and is leading the campaign against critics.
This extended fight with the police will make KPK commissioners fear for their safety and their careers, inevitably damaging their willingness to take on big ticket corruption suspects. Jokowi cannot allow the KPK, the nation’s most trusted institution, to be neutralized on his watch. It is a source of pride for Indonesian democracy and a hope for ordinary citizens tired of seeing the country’s economic potential held back by corrupt officials.
Mr. Jacob Thomases is a researcher with the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies at CSIS.
