T

he public’s trust in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration’s ability to enforce the law has reached the lowest level since he assumed office in 2004, a national survey revealed on Sunday.

A survey conducted by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) in 33 provinces in December, showed that 42.4 percent of the survey’s 1,220 nationwide respondents said the country’s law enforcement was “bad”, while only 33.2 percent of respondents said it was “good”.

“This was also the first time this annual survey found that the number of respondents who disapproved of the government’s law enforcement efforts was higher than the number of those who approved of them,” executive director Kuskhrido “Dodi” Ambardi said during a press conference on Sunday.

In regard to the government’s anticorruption efforts, the survey also found that the public’s faith in the antigraft drive had reached a record low. The survey showed that only 44 percent of respondents said that the government had done well in accomplishing its anticorruption agenda, down from 52 percent in December 2010 and 59 percent a year earlier.

According to the LSI’s survey in December 2008, the percentage of respondents who approved of the government’s anticorruption efforts reached a record-high of 77 percent.

“The President and his aides have made numerous efforts to enforce the law and curb corruption, such as making public statements, issuing regulations and establishing the Judicial Mafia Task Force,” LSI analyst Burhanuddin Muhtadi said.

“The results of this survey, however, confirmed that the outcome of these efforts did not translate into public approval,” he added.

Recently, there have been numerous cases across the archipelago that have prompted the public to question whether legal justice is a reality in the country.

In addition, the public has been turned off by apparent indiscriminate law enforcement, especially involving police and those close to power, he added.

Last week, a 15-year-old boy identified as AAL was found guilty by the Palu District Court in Palu, Central Sulawesi, for stealing a police officer’s flip-flops.

The owner of the flip-flops was found to have beaten the boy before filing an official report to a local police station. According to the survey, more and more people at the grass-roots level are feeling the failure of the government.

“In the past surveys, most of the critical comments have come from educated respondents. But in this latest survey, critical opinions on corruption issues have come from all manners of respondent, regardless of their education,” he said.

This was the latest survey depicting negative sentiment toward the Yudhoyono administration, particularly in terms of law enforcement and the fight against corruption.

Transparency International Indonesia revealed last month that Indonesia recorded another low score in 2011’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), placing it in 100th position out of 183 countries measured.

Senior lawyer and prominent antigraft activist Todung Mulya Lubis said the government should not always “hide behind the nation’s improving economic growth”.

“The President must seriously address the fact that corruption in the country is still rampant and that justice has yet to serve the public.”

The Corruption Eradication Commission’s newly elected deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto echoed Todung’s statement, saying that the government should have managed to improve the economy even more.