KPK views corruption as possible when someone joins a political party
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) assesses that corruption can occur when someone joins a political party (parpol) to become a cadre, and not only when that person holds a public office or regional head position.
“The KPK views the potential for corruption as not only occurring when someone occupies a public position, but often rooted in political processes such as cadre systems full of transactions and minimal accountability,” said KPK Spokesperson Budi Prasetyo to journalists in Jakarta on Saturday.
Therefore, he said the KPK is pushing for improvements in party governance systems. The KPK is also supporting these improvements by first conducting a study on party governance through the Monitoring Directorate.
“The implementation of this study within the framework of corruption prevention is in accordance with the mandate of Law No. 19 of 2019,” he stated.
He explained that Article 6 letter c of the KPK Law stipulates that the anti-corruption agency can monitor or supervise the implementation of state governance.
“Then in Article 9, it is stated that in carrying out this monitoring, the KPK is authorised to conduct studies on administrative management systems in all state institutions and government institutions,” he clarified.
Furthermore, he said the KPK’s study conducted in 2025 identifies corruption potentials in the conduct of general elections, captures party governance to ensure integrity, and discusses aspects of limiting physical cash transactions.
“These three aspects are considered to be closely interrelated in opening loopholes for corrupt practices that impact the quality of democracy and governance,” he said.
Meanwhile, in the study, the KPK conveyed several proposals related to corruption prevention in the party governance sector.
These KPK proposals were conveyed alongside findings that party cadre systems are not running well, leading to entry costs for someone to become a party cadre and to be endorsed in general elections.
Therefore, in its study, the KPK proposes improvements to the party cadre system to suppress such costs, while preventing efforts by individuals who newly join a party and become cadres due to certain political costs to recover their political capital.
Then, to support good cadre implementation, the KPK proposes dividing party members into young, intermediate, and main cadres.
In addition, there is a KPK proposal that candidates for DPR members be main party cadres. Meanwhile, candidates for provincial DPRD members should be intermediate cadres.
Meanwhile, candidates for president and vice president up to candidates for regional heads and deputy regional heads are proposed to come from the party cadre system and need to be cadres for a certain period of time.
To support cadre improvements, the KPK also proposes regulations on term limits for general chairmen of parties up to a maximum of two terms of management periods.