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15 candidates convicted criminals
Suherdjoko , The Jakarta Post , Semarang | Fri, 10/10/2008 10:55 AM | The Archipelago
Fifteen Central Java legislative candidates from various political parties were involved in crimes, mainly corruption, a watchdog said Thursday.
Eleven of the 15 candidates were involved in corruption cases, according to Eko Haryanto, the secretary of the Central Java Nepotism, Collusion and Corruption Eradication and Investigation Committee (KP2KKN).
Haryanto said the remaining four candidates were convicted of other crimes including drug abuse, falsification of education qualifications and defamation.
"All of these cases were brought to court. And they were sentenced," he said, without naming the candidates.
Haryanto said his organization had reported the findings of its investigation to the national General Elections Commission (KPU) on Wednesday.
"The information is likely to grow as we are still conducting further investigations and are waiting for people's input on this issue. Residents can criticize candidates and send their protests to us until Oct. 14," Haryanto said.
Of the 11 candidates involved in corruption, he said, eight were nominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), two by the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and one by the Democratic Party.
Haryanto said KP2KKN was established to scrutinize legislative candidates from Central Java nominated for the provincial legislative council and the House of Representatives.
The results of its observations of House candidates will be handed over to Indonesia Corruption Watch, which will then take the information to the KPU.
Haryanto said the KPU had invited voters in Central Java to comment on the preliminary candidates' list, which was announced on Sept. 26.
"There are still many candidates who were allegedly involved in various crimes," he said.
"Their cases are still under police and prosecutor investigation."
He said his team had also discovered that 100 members of the 2001-2005 Central Java council were allegedly involved in embezzlement of the provincial budget to a value of more than Rp 14 billion.
Of these, Haryanto said, only 14 people were tried and convicted, while the others remained free.
"In fact, all the council members enjoy the corrupted money. The bad news is, most of them are still council members even now. We call them 'rotten' politicians," he said.
KP2KKN has called on all parties to be "wise" and to respond to people's criticism by selecting "clean candidates" for the election.
Haryanto said one concern of the findings was that people would be reluctant to vote if they learned many candidates were involved in criminal activity.
KP2KKN is working with several NGOs in Semarang, Magelang, Banyumas and other regions in Central Java to strengthen its work, he added.
The Central Java General Elections Commission will announce the final list of candidates on Oct. 31.
