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."