A gathering held by a presidential hopeful in late May at a South Jakarta hotel was attended by around 300 prominent businesspeople and their representatives, some of them currently mired in cases of alleged misuse of taxpayer money.
Executives from the mining, property and financial sectors were invited to the event, aimed at introducing the candidate's campaign platform.
Among those attending were people who allegedly abused the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support (BLBI) funds, disbursed after the late 1997 Asian financial crisis.
After the event, briefcases exchange hands on the spot; more were exchanged elsewhere.
The briefcases were filled with cash, mostly US dollar bills.
"Using rupiah is not efficient, because the equivalent amount wouldn't fit in a briefcase. So dollars are used to keep it compact," a noted businessman told The Jakarta Post.
"This cash-and-carry method has been the safest way to donate to campaign teams since the 2004 election: No witnesses or paper trail to potentially trouble us, and the money is easily spent."
The practice is widely used due to the limit on donations set by the election law. Under the law, corporate donations to a presidential campaign may not exceed Rp 5 billion (US$505,000), while individual donations are capped at Rp 1 billion.
The requirement has stymied both presidential hopefuls seeking large amounts of legally raised funding, and businesspeople looking to leverage business privileges from their donations, should the candidate win.
Business people are also often asked by influential members of a campaign team to help bankroll campaign programs.
Another mode of bypassing the system is to use several proxies, usually small and medium companies, to help channel funds.
For instance, a company seeking to donate Rp 50 billion would have to use at least 10 proxy companies to get the money across.
"Illegal campaign donations have become a protracted problem difficult to crack," says University of Indonesia political analyst Maswadi Rauf.
"It's hard for even the KPU *General Elections Commission* or the Bawaslu *Elections Supervisory Body* to spot the unreported donations and trace them back to sham accounts."
Last week, the Bawaslu discovered an irregularity in the Yudhoyono-Boediono campaign fund.
The KPU reported PT Sohibul Barokah had donated Rp 5 billion to the team. The report did not mention any other company donating that same amount of money.
Sohibul Barokah is a bank equipment supplier in North Jakarta.
For Bawaslu member Bambang Eka Cahya Widodo, it beggars belief that a company that owns all of two computers could possibly donate Rp 5 billion.
Illegal accounts remain the most common way to donate large sums of money to candidates, he says.
"Illegal accounts are hard to trace. We've gathered information about mysterious groups outside the campaign team structure, working for and donating to the candidates," Bambang says.
"But it's hard to prove these groups are connected to the candidates because we lack access to their bank accounts."
The Yudhoyono-Boediono team has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
Campaign funds (in billions of rupiah)
Candidates-----May 29-----June 1-----Donors
Yudhoyono-Boediono---20.075---20.3----PT Sohibul Barokah (5)
--------------------------------------PT Sohibul Internasional (3.5)
--------------------------------------PT Tri Manunggal Cipta Abadi (3.5)
--------------------------------------Democratic Party (0.05)
Megawati-Prabowo-----15.5-----20------Prabowo (15)
--------------------------------------Megawati (5)
Kalla-Wiranto--------10.25----10------Golkar Party (7) --------------------------------------Hanura (3)
Source: KPU
