No time to fight graft

No time to fight graft

To many Indonesians, next week's general election deserves
unrelenting national attention, with all other problems
considered insignificant in comparison.

Perhaps this also is the belief of high-ranking state
prosecutors at the Attorney General's Office. The dismissive way
the newly appointed deputy attorney general for special crimes
and one of the directors of the Attorney General's Office treated
an anticorruption activist on Monday indicates they are either
busy with the national polls or merely displaying their
indifference to the problem of corruption.

Wardah Hafidz came to see them to submit her findings about
alleged misuse of public funds involving two parties contesting
the polls. Unfortunately, the two officials were nowhere to be
found despite having promised to meet her.

Reacting to what many might consider an outright snub, Wardah
said: "This demonstrates the Attorney General's Office is not
responsive or ready to receive data from the public." The
fearless chairwoman of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), who was
accompanied by her lawyers, was ready to present findings of
alleged abuse of US$800 million in social safety net funds by the
ruling Golkar Party and the People's Sovereignty Party (PDR). She
alleges the parties misused the funds -- designed to help out
this country's swelling ranks of the needy -- for their election
campaigns and of distributing the money in their parties' name.

It is noteworthy that Golkar chairman Akbar Tanjung has
promised to investigate Wardah's allegations although he did not
name a date. At least his statement was better than PDR's
obstinate reaction of accusing Wardah of waging an ideological
and political war of vengeance.

PDR also accused her of accepting $40,000 in bribes from the
World Bank, a charge which it has yet to prove. When the party
threatened to sue her for slander, the courageous Wardah replied:
"Go ahead, sir, but it would be suicide for your party."

PDR's threats appear to be more bravado than bravery. As
Wardah confirmed in her interview with DeTAK magazine this week,
PDR last week offered a peaceful settlement to the matter, which
she flatly turned down. She is refusing to abandon her cause
despite threatening phone calls and harassment of her witnesses
to withdraw their testimony.

Disappointed but unbowed by her unpleasant experience at the
Attorney General's Office, Wardah then proceeded to the Election
Supervisory Committee in another part of the city to submit the
findings. She met with committee member Dadang Hawari, who
promised to probe the allegations.

If found to be true, the corruption ranks not only as a
grievous breach of the people's trust, but also a violation of
the law on general elections. Choosing to think positively, we
presume the attorney general for special crimes bore no malice
when he decided not to meet Wardah. Perhaps he believed her
findings are of no relevance to his tasks and do not fall into
the category of special crimes.

Yet the public also is confused by what is defined as a
special crime by the Attorney General's Office, already a
laughing-stock through its farcical handling of the probe into
former president Soeharto's allegedly ill-gotten wealth. Some
might say that Wardah should have realized that the deputy
attorney general office's operates under an undeclared motto:
"Anticorruption fighters are not welcome because no crime is
special in Indonesia today."