Golkar, PDI-P leaders suspect discrimination behind legislators’ arrest

Party leaders suspected there might be discrimination behind recent legislators’ arrests. Without further elaboration, the leaders vowed to seek evidence that would point in that direction.

“We respect the ongoing investigation, including the arrests. However it won’t stop us from seeking evidence that might justify our suspicion that there has been discrimination against our party members,” Golkar Party Chief Aburizal Bakrie said as quoted by Kompas.com on Friday night.

Aburizal, along with party counterparts, visited the party members that had been arrested and were being held at the Cipinang Prison on alleged receiving of bribes to win favor with central bank senior deputy governor Miranda Swaray Gultom. They legislators are the former national development minister, Paskah Suzetta, and Ahmad Hafid Zamawi.

In harmony with Bakrie was the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) Tjahjo Kumolo who said that he was quite surprised to see that Panda Nababan, one of the PDI-P’s important figures, had been arrested by Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators. 

“Panda has been so cooperative with KPK investigators during the questioning sessions but yet he is arrested anyway. Thus it makes me wonder what the basis of the arrest is,” he told The Jakarta Post.

The suspicion was first raised when the party leaders considered that the anti-graft body was powerless when it came to Miranda. To this date, the KPK argued that it found nothing directly linking Miranda with the bribery case besides confessions