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.