House to accept list of KPK candidates

JAKARTA: House Commission III overseeing legal affairs has agreed to accept the government’s list of candidates to lead the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), ending a weeks-long standoff that critics said was connected to the KPK’s probe of allegations of budget abuse by lawmakers.

“The House commission officially accepts the eight candidates proposed by the government. The different opinions of certain Commission III members are noted, but the decision has been taken,”commission chairman Benny Kabur Harman of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party said on Monday.

The Golkar Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) previously insisted that the government must provide 10 candidates under the 2002 KPK Law.

Separately, Commission deputy chairman Fahri Hamzah of the PKS will be transferred to House Commission XI overseeing finance, national development planning, banking and non-banking agency affairs.

House PKS secretary Abdul Hakim said the transfer was made at Fahri’s request.