Crooked politicians named in Bali

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

Five days before election day, April 5, Bali Corruption Watch (BCW) released here on Wednesday a list of 14 local legislative candidates deemed to be crooked politicians.

The anticorruption group urged the Balinese people not to vote for them in the upcoming legislative election.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) had the most candidates on the list.

Of the total 14 names on the list, 12 are PDI-P politicians. The other two hail from the Golkar Party and the Democratic Party.

"People can use this list as a reference before casting their votes on April 5. Hopefully, they will not vote for these candidates, who have betrayed the trust placed in them," BCW chairman Putu Wirata Dwikora said.

The watchdog mentioned the names of all 14 politicians concerned, but The Jakarta Post cannot publish them for legal reasons.

Dwikora said the names on the list were all backed up by valid data, documentation and testimonies, but added that some other candidates had also lost their credibility.

"Therefore, people should not necessarily view other candidates as clean politicians just because their names do not appear on this list," he said.

All the listed PDI-P candidates were implicated in the money politics scandal during last year's election for the Bali governor.

Each allegedly received Rp 50 million (US$5,882) in travelers cheques to vote for the incumbent governor, Dewa Made Beratha, who later won the election with a sizable majority.

One of PDI-P's candidates on the list countered BCW's move by questioning its integrity.

"Do the BCW people think that they are the cleanest people on the island? The list is a fine example of finger-pointing by different groups of thieves," he said.

However, he said that he would not pursue legal action against the BCW, claiming that the list would not harm his image before his constituents.

"It doesn't matter that the BCW is calling me a rotten politician as my grassroots supporters still accept me as their political representative," he argued.