Wealth report a must for presidential aspirants

Wealth report a must for presidential aspirants

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

All presidential and vice presidential candidates for the 2004
general elections were required to declare their wealth before
running for the country's top posts, Minister of Home Affairs
Hari Sabarno said Friday.

Hari said the final draft of the presidential election bill,
currently being finalized by his ministry, stipulated that all
candidates have to make public their wealth before the elections
in order to support the fight against corruption, collusion and
nepotism.

"It does not matter what party he or she comes from," Hari
told the press before attending a limited cabinet meeting to
discuss the presidential election bill.

Anti-corruption campaigners have strongly criticized the
widely circulated draft for not requiring candidates for the
presidential and vice presidential posts to declare their wealth.

The country's bureaucrats and public officials are well known
for delving in practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism,
and Indonesia has consistently been classified among the five
most corrupt countries in the world.

Corruption, collusion and nepotism are widely blamed plunging
the country into the economic crisis that started in 1997.

The Public Servants' Wealth Audit Commission (KPKPN) has
complained that not all public officials were willing to declare
their wealth.

Hari said the bill also prohibited civil servants and
government officials from using state facilities when carrying
out party activities.

"Civil servants wanting to join political parties have to
leave office before election campaigns commence," the minister
said.

He also said that anyone aspiring for the presidential or vice
presidential posts in the 2004 elections must ensure that they
are not implicated in any criminal case that carries a minimum
jail sentence of five years.

He, however, failed to clarify as to whether or not aspirants
who had already served their prison terms could still contest in
the elections.

Meanwhile, according to the draft presidential bill, no one
convicted for, nor named a suspect in, a crime with a minimum
jail sentence of five years is allowed to contest.

As such, Akbar Tandjung, chairman of the country's biggest
political party Golkar, may have to sit out the 2004 elections if
the Jakarta High Court sentences him to jail, regardless the
length of the prison term, as he has been charged with
corruption, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years.

Akbar, who is also the House of Representatives (DPR) Speaker,
was sentenced to three years in jail by the Central Jakarta
District Court for misappropriating funds worth Rp 40 billion
from the State Logistics Agency (Bulog). He is still free,
pending an appeal.

Hari said the strict regulation aimed at ensuring that the
country had a credible president and vice president.

"We want to have a credible and clean president, free from all
legal problems," Hari said after a meeting at the state palace on
Friday.

"The bottom line is, anyone who was a defendant or was
convicted under a criminal charge carrying a five-year minimum
sentence are disqualified from the presidential race," the
minister asserted.

The government has been preparing the draft bill over the past
few months as part of the four political laws needed for the
first ever direct presidential elections in 2004.

The direct presidential election bill is to be submitted to
the House later this month for deliberation.