Campaign kicks off to ditch unscrupulous politicians

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Government critics, students, and non-governmental organization activists on Tuesday launched a nationwide drive aimed at urging the people not to elect "dirty rotten politicians" in the 2004 elections.

The campaign, according to the proponents, was part of their efforts to free the country from corrupt state officials.

They, however, were still undecided on whether they would publish the list of unscrupulous politicians or simply provide the people with some indicators.

The movement came just one day after the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) announced its latest finding that 68 percent or 1,469 of 2,160 respondents from 372 villages and cities wanted economic recovery and job opportunities as well as cheap basic commodities to be the main priorities after the elections.

Indonesia will hold the legislative election on April 5 and the presidential election on July 5. Twenty-four parties have been declared eligible for the elections.

Economist Faisal Basri said the movement had prepared lawyers in anticipation of defamation suits filed by politicians.

"The most difficult thing is to identify the bad politicians from the good ones," he said at a press briefing here on Tuesday.

Also at the press briefing were political analyst J. Kristiadi from the Centre of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), rights activist Asmara Nababan, secretary of Transparency International (TI) Indonesia Emmy Hafild, and former legislator Indira Damayanti Soegondo.

The group would use four crucial issues as a guide to differentiate bad politicians from good ones. The four issues are corruption, environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and domestic violence/extramarital affairs.

Human rights activist Munir, who also joined the campaign, said he would identify the eligibility of politicians based on their human rights track records.

"I think all current legislators are ineligible for reelection because they refuse to declare the Trisakti incident as a case of gross human rights abuses," he said, referring to the killing of four Trisakti students that triggered massive riots across the country in 1998.

Separately, Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) coordinator Teten Masduki acknowledged that fellow activists were still debating on whether they would publish a list of unscrupulous politicians or only provide the people with criterion for the eligibility of politicians.

"There is no decision yet. We hope this campaign will become a warning for political parties not to take the nomination of their cadres lightly," he told The Jakarta Post by phone from Denpasar, Bali, where he was to launch the same campaign.

The activists are to jointly declare the campaign on Dec. 29 in several cities nationwide.

Director of the Center for Electoral Reform (CETRO) Smita Notosusanto, meanwhile, doubted the movement would be effective.

Law No. 12/2003 on elections, she said, did not instruct the General Elections Commission (KPU) to issue a temporary list of legislative candidates for people's scrutiny.

"This means there is no opportunity to scrutinize the legislative candidates. I am afraid this movement will not be effective," she said.

Smita, however, urged political parties to publish their temporary lists of legislative candidates for public scrutiny.

Political parties have to submit their legislative candidates to the KPU by Dec. 29 at the latest.

Faisal emphasized that the campaign would be a difficult process. "If the campaign fails, I am afraid we will have a president whose backers are thugs. We don't want that to happen, do we?" he said.