Acceptance of corruption may foil drive

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Without intending to dampen the spirit of anticorruption crusaders and their fight against crooked politicians, a noted lawyer asserted that the campaign not to vote for those figures will likely have little impact.

"(The campaign) is a positive thing, but it'll probably have little effect due to the culture of permissiveness toward corruption and ambivalence about it in our society," Todung Mulya Lubis told a seminar titled "Corruption and 'Black' Politicians" held by the Center for Social Economic Studies (CSES) on Thursday.

He explained that such permissiveness was shown in the respectful treatment given to corruptors and the low number of corruption cases brought to courts.

"Only here in our country a convicted corruptor who is still on parole can chair the Indonesian Athletics Association," said Todung, referring to Bob Hasan who was released last month after serving two-thirds of his six-year sentence for misusing state funds.

"The campaign's anticlimax was when Akbar's appeal was granted by the Supreme Court. So don't be surprised if many crooked politicians, listed or not, are still elected or reelected," Todung added.

Several non-governmental organizations, led by Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), have appealed to the public not to vote for unscrupulous politicians. They were supposed to publish a list of such politicians before the campaign period started to help the public make decisions during the upcoming general elections.

The campaign period started on Thursday and will continue until April 1. However, the list still has not materialized since the organizations said they were still collecting names.

Todung's comments were fortified by a recent study by CSES among 150 Jakartans, which found that only 26.8 percent of the interviewed respondents would not vote for crooked politicians although over 70 percent of them claimed that they supported the campaign.

"Our public is so ambivalent. They know that those politicians are unscrupulous but yet will still vote for them," he lamented.

He also said that it would take stricter law enforcement to diminish such permissiveness and the pessimistic attitude within the society.

"Freed corruptors and lenient sentences will only strengthen the attitude. People won't hesitate to engage in corruption ... too many corruption cases and practices of money politics within political parties still remain below the surface," he asserted.

Nevertheless, Todung remained optimistic about the struggle, affirming that "the campaign is indeed an excellent start of a long campaign against crooked politicians".