One candidate, former Constitutional Court chief justice Jimly Asshiddiqie, said the antigraft body had become the “common enemy” of judges, politicians and government officials due to its intensive fight against graft.

“The KPK must be saved. We need to improve mechanisms within the body so that it doesn’t need to be hostile to everyone,” he said.

“The KPK has been in the forefront of the anticorruption campaign. It should have motivated all public officials to clean their institutions of corruption,” said Jimly, who has been tipped as the favorite for the KPK chairman job.

The KPK had to build partnerships with other institutions to achieve the goal, he added.

“The KPK, however, should not be interfered with by the state, politicians, or market forces — as well as by civil society elements,” said Jimly, who said he had used money from an Indonesian haj pilgrim trust fund to partially fund a minor haj pilgrimage with his wife in 2000.

Another candidate, National Police Insp. Gen. (ret). Chaerul Rasjid, said the KPK had to improve collaboration with other law enforcement and government institutions.

“This newly established body has been given extraordinary power, making it arrogant,” said Chaerul, adding that such privilege had offended the police and the Attorney General’s Office.

Chaerul said the KPK needed to cooperate and coordinate better with the police, such as by signing a memorandum of understanding.  

He said if appointed he would investigate the implausibly large bank accounts allegedly held by several high-ranking police officials. The issue came under intense media scrutiny when Tempo news magazine published a story in June alleging that seven police officers had billions of rupiah in their bank accounts that had been transferred by third parties.  

Candidate and human rights activist Bambang Widjojanto said several steps could be taken to improve the situation, such as developing capacity building and synergy, and consolidating law enforcement.

“The KPK’s three divisions — prevention, enforcement and monitoring — have not yet been integrated,” he said.  

Bambang suggested that an online monitoring system could process the 7,900 reports received by the KPK each year.

“We can map the corruption using processed data. The mapping will be useful in reviewing current trends in graft. We can focus our resources to curb the situation.”

Regional Representatives Council anticorruption caucus chair I Wayan Sudirta, who is also a candidate, said collective collegial leadership at the KPK and the improvement of its standard operation procedures were important.

“We also need to put supervisory personnel in each province to build a corruption database,” he said, adding that many officials were still unaware of the law on corruption.

Selection committee chairman Patrialis Akbar, who is also the justice and human rights minister, said those who passed the interview were not allowed to withdraw from the selection process.

“If chosen, they will be referred to the President,” he said. (lnd)

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