Febri Diansyah (JP/Imanuddin Razak)

The arrest of the then-chairman of the United Development Party (PPP), Muhammad Romahurmuziy, aka Romy, by investigators of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was only a few weeks before the April 17 legislative and presidential elections. Many have criticized that the timing was not right and that the target was the chairman of a party that is part of the government coalition of incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. The Jakarta Post’s Kharishar Kahfi, Liza Yosephine and Imanuddin Razak recently talked to KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah about the issue and how to prevent corruption during election periods.

Question: Was the arrest of Romy on March 15 based on evidence filed by a third party or obtained by KPK investigators, or upon evidence revealed in a court trial?

Answer: The case [against Romy] is not a development of a different case being tried in court. This is a new case based on reports filed by the public. Prior to conducting the arrest, we had validated one report mentioning a possible transaction in Surabaya. Soon after we found it to be valid, we sent a team to Surabaya, where the team found out themselves that the transaction [as mentioned in the report] was really happening.

The information about the transaction in Surabaya was not the first report we had got. In February, we received information about a transaction in connection with the head of the East Java office of the Religious Affairs Ministry. The money, amounting to Rp 250 million (US$17,739) was taken to Romy’s house in Condet [in East Jakarta]. However, the report about the transaction in Condet was only the subject of our validation. The real evidence of the transaction [involving Romy] was when we [allegedly] caught him red-handed receiving the bribe at a hotel in Surabaya.

Q: Who gave the information on the transaction in Surabaya?

I cannot tell you who gave it to us as I will be sanctioned with criminal charges [for violating my oath as a KPK employee] unless the person tells the media or in public that they were the one who filed the report.

Q: I will ask you in a different way. There was an impression reported in the national media that it was Mahfud MD [former Constitutional Court chief] who submitted the report. Is that true?

In practice, we’ll never reveal the identity of anyone filing reports to the KPK. Internally, there is a layered standardized mechanism to protect the identity of those submitting reports to the KPK and there are only a limited number of individuals in the KPK who know about such information.

Q: Is the kind of third party involvement in the promotion process at the Religious Affairs Ministry also found in other ministries?

I cannot tell you whether the same patterns of abuse of authority do exist or do not exist in other ministries, but technically, such abuses can happen at any public office as long as our political system does not clearly separate between public affairs — public in the sense of state institutions — political party affairs and personal affairs.

Q: Rumors are rife that the arrest of Romy was the result of a power struggle in the KPK. Is that true?

There will always be negative responses to what the KPK had been doing. Just let them be. One thing for sure is that the KPK must remain prudent in handling any corruption cases.

All cases investigated by the KPK will have to go through a plenary meeting, known as an exposé, in which all the evidence and documents in each case will be tested on whether they are strong enough to be upgraded to the next level. The decision will be with the KPK leadership. So if there are any individual preferences about whether to continue or discontinue one case, it will still be subject to the strict collective decision making mechanism of the expose and the KPK leadership will have the final say on the case.

Q: We all know that Romy is a close confidant of Pak Jokowi. Has there been any government intervention on the KPK in its investigation into Romy?

To my knowledge, there has been no such thing.

Q: Is there any indication that the money Romy [allegedly] took went to his own coffers or to his party?

We do not know as yet. The investigation is underway.

Q: In your opinion, how does electoral corruption threaten our democracy?

The ultimate goal of democracy is prosperity for all members of the nation. Corruption is one of the key factors preventing the goal from being achieved, and the crucial institutions in democracy are the political parties. Democracy is in danger if the political parties are taken over by corruption.

So, corruption is not only a danger to democracy, but it can also be so destructive to and hijack democracy itself.

Through our internal discussions, involving experts, and from the cases handled by the KPK, it has been confirmed that the oligarchy is the culprit that hijacks our democracy, although not all of the cases can be uncovered and be prosecuted as corruption cases.

Q: Are members of the oligarchy old players or are some of them new ones?

What matters is not whether they are old or new players, but how the existing mechanism and system are destroyed by a small group of people in power, which consists of prime actors in political parties and capital owners.

Actually, the role of this oligarchy can be minimized if there is true competition within a political party and among the existing political parties. The question is whether the competition does exist. What has essentially happened in the past 10 years is the establishment of two big “political buildings”, known as political cartels. So, there have only been “sharing the slices of the cake” activities, but not political competition.

Popular

PDI-P will likely be part of opposition: Ganjar

Indonesia one step from Olympics after beating South Korea

Bahlil leads task force to boost sugar, bioethanol production in Papua