Dirty politicians a blight on Indonesia: Scholar

Dirty politicians a blight on Indonesia: Scholar

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The integrity of members of the House of Representatives (DPR)
needed to be overhauled, not the political system, noted
political scientist Deliar Noer said in Jakarta on Friday.

"The problem revolves around the morality of the House members
and not the system," Deliar Noer, a professor of politics at the
University of Indonesia, said.

"The Netherlands is using a proportional system (similar to
the one applied in Indonesia), but the country still has good and
credible legislators," he said.

Deliar made the remarks in response to an earlier statement
made by another political observer T.A. Legowo that a system
overhaul was needed to help save the House's integrity.

Legowo said in a discussion on Thursday that the proportional
system currently used by Indonesia should be replaced with
the district system since it was proven to have been able to
increase transparency.

Deliar expressed concern over the degrading of both members of
the House and the People's Consultative Assembly.

It was very much contradictory in the past, when most
Indonesian leaders, notably Sukarno and Hatta, proved themselves
to be role models for Indonesians.

Sukarno and Hatta, for example, strongly rejected an offer
from the Dutch, tempting them with good positions in the Dutch
administration before independence in 1945.

Instead of receiving the offer, they were defiant and even
went forward to fight for the people's freedom even though they
knew they would suffer, Deliar said.

"Today who are the leaders whom we could follow, especially
the legislators?" he asked.

According to Deliar, a good system doesn't guarantee the
integrity of the House.

"Morality should be given much more emphasis since people can
seek various ways to manipulate the system," he said, adding that
improving the legislators' morality would need time, lots of it.

"From now on, the government has to boost its efforts to
improve the morals of the people through either informal
education or school curriculum. This would provide a breed of
good legislators in the future," he said.

For the incumbent DPR members, Deliar urged them to uphold
morals while they served.

"Should they fail to do that, their credibility would diminish
before the people. And, this will bring losses to themselves,"
Deliar told reporters at his party's Muslim Community Party (PUI)
headquarters in South Jakarta.

The second way to improve the integrity of the House was
through enforcing the law, he said.

"Strict law enforcement will discourage them from wrongdoing
in the future."

Indira Sugondo, a legislator, conceded on Thursday that
extortion and bribery were rampant among the legislators, some
of whom were active in extorting the regional governments or
state enterprises they visited.

Another confession was disclosed on Friday by Noviantika
Nasution, another member of the DPR.

Noviantika conceded that some entrepreneurs visited the
DPR/MPR members in search of privileges and protection for their
businesses.

"For example, an entrepreneur consults with a DPR member on
how to collect debts from the state electricity company PLN,"
said Noviantika, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle.

Noviantika said abuse of power by DPR members frequently took
place after such consultations because DPR members themselves
were usually bought off with a sum of funds by the entrepreneur
and the DPR members themselves, who later acted as debt
collectors.

Noviantika shared Deliar's comments that the morality of DPR
members would play a prominent role in lifting the House's
integrity.

"It comes back to their consciences. The DPR members must be
professional and not abuse their positions," she said.