Saldi and his expectations of Susilo<\/p>\n
Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, Contributor\/Padang<\/p>\n
Corruption is rife in Indonesia and its eradication is highly
\ndependent upon the country's president.<\/p>\n
Throughout the administration of President Megawati
\nSoekarnoputri, only the regions seemed to be serious about
\neliminating corruption.<\/p>\n
In West Sumatra province 43 members of the provincial
\nlegislative assembly have been convicted of graft. It is public
\nknowledge, however, that more corruption can be found in the
\ncorridors of power in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"If the president is actively encouraging the eradication of
\ncorruption, hopefully the drive to eradicate it in Indonesia will
\nbe more intensive than before. In a patriarchal society, the
\nleaders must provide a good example,\" Forum of Concern for West
\nSumatra (FPSB) coordinator Saldi Isra said.<\/p>\n
Saldi, also a lecturer at the School of Law at Andalas
\nUniversity, Padang, has this year been named a joint recipient of
\nBung Hatta Anti-Corruption Award. The other recipient is Solok
\nRegent Gamawan Fauzi. The two will receive the award at Jakarta
\nConvention Center on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Comparing Megawati, the incumbent president, and Susilo
\nBambang Yudhoyono, who is almost certain to succeed Megawati as
\nIndonesia's first directly elected president, Saldi said Susilo
\nhad shown a clearer commitment than Megawati to eradicating
\ncorruption.<\/p>\n
\"In his campaign for the presidential runoff, he openly said
\nthat he would lead the drive to eradicate corruption,\" he said.<\/p>\n
To translate this commitment into reality, Susilo must appoint
\ncabinet ministers, particularly those dealing with the law, who
\nwere strongly committed to eradicating corruption and not
\nimplicated in any graft, Saldi said.<\/p>\n
The positions of the attorney general and the chief of the
\nnational police should go to capable and credible people only, he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
\"It is impossible to speedily eradicate corruption if the key
\npeople in the cabinet lineup are embroiled in one way or another
\nin corruption,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Susilo should then show both his cabinet and the public that
\nhe leads a modest life. He and his family should not be engaged
\nin business dealings during his presidential tenure and should
\ndeclare their wealth to the public.<\/p>\n
\"If he can do these two things, Susilo will have quite a big
\nasset with which to start realizing his commitment to eradicate
\ncorruption,\" Saldi said.<\/p>\n
Aside from internal affairs, Susilo must be able in the first
\n100 days of his administration to encourage the reopening of
\nhigh-profile, major corruption cases that had yet to be
\nthoroughly settled.<\/p>\n
Cases that have attracted great public attention include,
\namong others, alleged corruption in national banking circles, the
\nbribery of House members from 1999 to this year and the Bank
\nIndonesia Liquidation Support Loan (BLBI) scheme.<\/p>\n
He should also restart Soeharto's trial although it would be
\nimpossible to settle this case in his first one hundred days as
\npresident, Saldi said.<\/p>\n
Then, Susilo must encourage quicker investigation into graft
\ncases in the regions and identify the reasons why corruption
\neradication had been going on at a snail's pace.<\/p>\n
\"The new president should also scrap the practice of
\nnecessitating consent from the president or the home minister for
\nan investigation into corruption case that involves a government
\nofficial.<\/p>\n
\"The president should authorize prosecutor's offices to
\ninvestigate government officials without having to wait for his
\nconsent,\" he said.<\/p>\n
It was also important for the president to find ways to ensure
\ngraft suspects would not hide behind the excuse of being sick to
\navoid being investigated, as former president Soeharto and
\nchairman of the Confederation of Primary Cooperatives Association
\n(INKUD) Nurdin Halid had done.<\/p>\n
If Susilo took all these steps and strongly encouraged their
\nimplementation, the eradication of corruption would become a
\nreality, not only at the bottom but also at the top, he said.<\/p>\n
\"What is happening now is that the drive to eradicate
\ncorruption has begun at the lowest levels, for example, the
\nexposure of graft cases involving members of a regional
\nlegislative assembly.<\/p>\n
\"If a similar drive also began at the top, at some point these
\ntwo drives would meet and this would mean the eradication of
\ncorruption from top to bottom. In such a way, there would be no
\ndiscrimination in the investigation into graft cases,\" he said.<\/p>\n
It was quite promising, he said, to hear Susilo strongly
\nrepeat he would accept all the Partnership for Reform's proposed
\n20 programs of acceleration for good governance, which his
\nadministration would institute in the first 100 days.<\/p>\n
If the government followed up on this, it could sign an
\nintegrity pact on the implementation of good governance and clean
\ngovernment, in the future.<\/p>\n
\"Solok Regency, under its regent, Gamawan Fauzi, has signed
\nthe pact at the regental level, so why can't the central
\ngovernment do likewise at the national level? We need a strong
\nleader who can make this commitment and if the new president is
\nready for this, it will send a strong signal to lower levels,\"
\nsaid Saldi, who is a father of two daughters.<\/p>\n
An obstacle that might stand in Susilo's way, Saldi said, was
\nhis military background. It is generally perceived that business
\nnetworks in the military circles are fraught with corruption,
\ncollusion and nepotism. To change this practice poses a great
\nchallenge to Susilo.<\/p>\n
\"The victory of SBY (Susilo) and his running mate, Jusuf
\nKalla, in the presidential runoff indicates that the public are
\npinning great hopes on them for a change.<\/p>\n
\"People did not want to see Megawati reelected as president
\nbecause she failed to eradicate corruption. If Susilo fails to
\nfollow up on this hope, he will simply be repeating the mistakes
\nof his predecessors,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Saldi Isra was born in Paninggahan, Solok, West Sumatra, on
\nAugust 20, 1968. After earning his Master of Public
\nAdministration degree from the Institute of Postgraduate Studies
\nand Research, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in
\n2001, he returned to his former university to teach in the
\ndepartment of constitutional law and in the postgraduate law
\nprogram.<\/p>\n
Married to Leslie Annisaa Taufik, since 1995 Taufik has been a
\nprolific writer of opinion pieces on matters related to
\nconstitutional law in national newspapers.<\/p>\n
During the past three months, four to eight of his articles
\nhave been published each month. Mostly about graft eradication,
\nthe panel of judges took them into account when naming him as one
\nof the joint recipients of the Bung Hatta Anticorruption Award.<\/p>\n
Driven by Saldi the FPSB successfully investigated and exposed
\na corruption case involving Rp 6.4 billion in state funds in the
\nWest Sumatra 2002 provincial budget, an act leading to the
\nconviction of 43 members of the provincial legislative assembly.<\/p>\n
\"Although I am formally receiving the award, I'm considering
\nit a citation for FPSB, a forum where we all work together. On
\nthe one hand, we are happy for the appreciation given to our hard
\nwork in the FPSB, but on the other, we deem it a great challenge
\nto maintain our level of achievement,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Following the revelation of the graft case in West Sumatra, he
\nsaid, the province had often been associated with widespread
\ncorruption.<\/p>\n
However, now that two people from the province have been named
\nrecipients of the Bung Hatta award, it is obvious a serious drive
\nto eradicate corruption has also begun.<\/p>",
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