Transformation of corruption

Transformation of corruption

This is the second of two articles on corruption by Teten Masduki, coordinator of the Jakarta-based Indonesian Corruption Watch.

JAKARTA (JP): The outcome of the last election may have strengthened the old forces, after apparently successfully repositioning themselves in new institutions during Habibie's administration.

Obviously, we cannot expect the political elite to come up with an agenda to wipe out graft because they are the main perpetrators. As shown in Singapore and Hong Kong, graft elimination requires a role model from the top.

The great attention that the legislature has paid to the two money scandals allegedly involving the president is more an attempt to use graft issues as a means of character assassination to weaken Gus Dur's position -- rather than the real commitment of the House to eradicate graft.

Major graft cases or the failure of Gus Dur's administration in doing away with graft have never been included in the House's main agenda of discussion.

Instead of paying utmost attention to wiping out corruption, Gus Dur himself has instead obstructed law enforcement with his open protection of three debt-ridden business tycoons (Marimutu Sinivasan, Syamsul Nursalim and Prajogo Pangestu) or his meeting with Tommy Soeharto, then already a convict.

The appointment of Marzuki Darusman, a Golkar cadre and smart politician, as the attorney general, clearly indicates that Gus Dur has basically extended protection against punishment to the three main pillars of the New Order (minus Soeharto), namely business tycoons, political bureaucrats and generals.

In the Cabinet, not a single minister can morally claim integrity to be able to create zero corruption in their own offices. Therefore, the approach of an island of integrity aiming for good governance, introduced by Transparency International, the International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions, cannot be applied here.

This means few, if any at the elite level, dare risk losing their positions when they go against the grains.

A corrupt political society has left no option to the anti- graft movement but to concentrate on empowering the civil society, mainly in pressurizing the government, political parties and the legislature to show greater accountability, and change the political behavior of the corrupt elite.

A new political structure obviously needs change in the general election system, and there must be a guarantee that people's representatives will show greater accountability.

Political parties must hence cleanse themselves from dirty politicians; or they will lose votes in the next election.

Also, these parties are expected to adopt a public accountability system, which will enable the people to remove legislators and replace a government betraying their trust.

This means a broader corridor for community participation in public decision making, supervision and law enforcement. The people's right to access information on officials and to obtain protection for the right to control these officials must be guaranteed in the laws, to prevent possibility of retaliation.

Legal reform to facilitate the trial of those engaged in graft is urgent. This August the government will set up a Commission on Graft Eradication, an agency given vast authority to carry out investigation and prosecution, as regulated in Law No. 31/1999 on graft eradication.

This commission may substitute the prosecutor's office and the police, which have proved non-functional in wiping out graft.

However, bad experience in the set up of the state official wealth commission justifies fears that the above Commission will be so much influenced by political interests that it will fail to function from the very start.

Besides, a special procedural code on courts trying graft cases must be established. In this context the principle of reverse evidence must be adopted because the conventional procedural code not only proves ineffective in such cases, but also opens opportunities for the prosecutor or the police to collude with the suspect to avoid a trial.

The courts must hence must comprise selected judges uncontaminated by the mafia-like practices in our judicial system.

Social sanctions imposed on those engaged in graft practices can actually fill the gap left by legal sanctions.

However social ostracism is not easy in a community still highly tolerant towards deviant behavior. People have indeed taken the law into their own hands in theft cases found in their own sphere, sometimes very savagely.

However, they may not do the same thing towards people engaged in graft although these people may cause suffering on a larger scale. The latter are unlikely close to them; or the definition of graft has been euphemistically transformed, making its criminal nature vague.

Former President Soeharto may be an exception. He would have been tried by the students endlessly staging rallies around his residence, had it not been for barricades put up by the military.

A further constraint to wiping out graft is, unfortunately, the media practice of unwittingly allotting respectable space to dirty officials of the old regime now assuming a new image.