OTT of Regional Heads Repeats, IPDN Professor: Public Nearly Loses Sense of Shock

Guru Besar Institut Pemerintahan Dalam Negeri (IPDN), Djohermansyah Djohan, assesses that the repeated operations to apprehend regional heads (OTT) indicate that the problem of corruption in Indonesia has not been addressed at its roots. He stated that legal enforcement has not been balanced with improvements to the political system and governance. He highlighted the recent arrest of a regional head by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), adding to a list of over 400 regional heads who have been implicated in corruption cases. According to Djohermansyah, the sheer number of cases has desensitised the public. ‘The public is almost losing its sense of shock,’ he said. He argued that the main question is not why a regional head was arrested, but why such events keep recurring. ‘The answer is simple yet bitter: because we are busy punishing the perpetrators, but have not seriously fixed the system that produces them.’ He explained that corruption is not solely due to weak individual integrity but is also influenced by a political system with high costs, a bureaucracy vulnerable to intervention, and governance that has failed to build integrity. Djohermansyah noted that high political costs, from candidacy to election dispute resolution, encourage regional heads to view their positions as investments that must be recouped. This condition opens up space for practices such as buying and selling positions, arranging government projects for fees, and abuse of authority in licensing. ‘Politics ultimately turns into an investment that must be returned,’ he said. In his view, while the state civil apparatus has improved through computer-assisted recruitment tests, political pressure arises when officials enter structural positions. The authority of regional heads as personnel development officers in promotions, transfers, and dismissals makes it difficult for the bureaucracy to be fully independent. Consequently, bureaucratic professionalism is increasingly eroded as political considerations dominate over the merit system. Djohermansyah assessed that various coaching measures, such as retreats for regional heads, integrity pacts, and anti-corruption forums, have not been able to stop corrupt practices. ‘Integrity is not born from various policy directives. Integrity must be guarded by the system,’ he said. He therefore urged that reform begin with the political system, including revising the Political Party Law to make the recruitment of regional head candidates more democratic and based on competence and integrity. He also proposed evaluating the Regional Election Law to allow the model of regional head elections to be more tailored to the characteristics of each area. Furthermore, the state needs to reduce political costs by supporting campaign financing needs so that public office is no longer seen as a means to recover political capital. In the short term, the central government is deemed necessary to increase supervision of regional governments, especially in areas with a high risk of corruption. He stressed that corruption by regional heads not only harms state finances but also erodes public trust in local democracy. ‘We certainly do not want every operation to catch perpetrators to become a routine spectacle that is quickly forgotten before the next case arises,’ he affirmed. He emphasised that the government’s attention should not only focus on enforcement but also on fixing the political and bureaucratic systems so that corruption cases involving regional heads do not continue to recur. ‘It is time for the nation’s attention to shift from merely catching perpetrators to having the courage to dismantle the root of the problem immediately. Because, as long as the political and bureaucratic systems are left as they are, operations to catch perpetrators are not the end of corruption, but merely a sign that we have once again failed to fix the upstream problem.’