NU, Muhammadiyah form national anticorruption movement

NU, Muhammadiyah form national anticorruption movement

Moch. N. Kurniawan and
Wahyoe Boediwardhana
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta/Denpasar

Frustrated with the government's lackluster anticorruption
measures, the country's two largest Muslim organizations have
joined hands to fight corruption.

Nadhlatul Ulama (NU), which estimates membership at 40
million, and Muhammadiyah, with around 30 million members, signed
a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Wednesday to initiate a
national anticorruption movement.

The MOU, facilitated by non-governmental organization the
Partnership for Governance Reform, was signed by NU chairman
Hasyim Muzadi, Muhammadiyah chairman Syafii Maarif and
Partnership executive director H.S. Dillon.

"With the MOU, we want all NU members, as well as the people
of this country, to raise awareness of the anticorruption
movement. If many people back the movement, we hope this will
encourage law enforcers to crack down on corrupters," Hasyim
said.

Under the three-year MOU, NU and Muhammadiyah will develop an
Islamic interpretation of anticorruption and publish leadership
guidelines to promote good governance.

The two are also to carry out a national campaign on
anticorruption, and implement a modern management system at their
organizations based on the principles of accountability,
transparency, integrity, participation and justice.

Hasyim said the MOU was a response to people's frustration
with the present anticorruption measures taken by the government.

According to Hasyim, NU will also launch a public campaign
urging people not to vote for leaders that have a history of
corruption.

He also said that each and every NU and Muhammadiyah member
would be punished if they were involved in corrupt practices.

Meanwhile, Syafii said the anticorruption movement would be
broadened to include other, non-Islam organizations, so that it
would truly become a national movement.

"We really want to trigger nationwide anger against
corruption, at all levels, for bringing about poverty," he said.

He said corruption was a serious crime worse than theft, thus
the punishment against corruption should be stiffer.

He expected the government to learn from China, which punishes
those found guilty of corruption with death sentences.

Teten Masduki of the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) and
scholar Franz Magnis Suseno welcomed the anticorruption MOU.

Teten called on NU leaders, for example, to start rejecting
any unclear donations to their schools and to stop giving
"honorariums" to government officials.

But former president Abdurrahman Wahid expressed doubt that
the coalition between Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah would
succeed in eradicating the widespread corruption in the country.

"The cooperation between NU and Muhammadiyah is quite good.
However, frankly speaking, I am not very convinced that they have
enough courage to totally eradicate corruption, because this
problem is created by the government," he said before hundreds of
NU followers.

Indonesia ranks among the most corrupt countries in the world,
indicating that the government has not done much to eradicate
corruption since 1998, when the people ousted the corrupt
Soeharto regime and called for reform.

The most obvious example is House speaker Akbar Tandjung, who
retains his post, even though he has been convicted of
corruption. He is appealing the verdict and in the meantime, has
joined the presidential race.

The government's ambivalence in the fight against corruption
is also indicated in its reluctance to set up a powerful
AntiCorruption Commission (KPK) as mandated by the 2002
Anticorruption Law.

The KPK is to take over responsibilities of the police and the
Attorney General's Office in handling big corruption cases.

The public opinion is that corruption has generally become
worse, as during the Soeharto regime, only those in the upper
echelon were corrupt, but now, corruption has spread down the
ranks to even the lowest civil service official.