T

he weekend was a prolonged Dog Day Afternoon with even more suspense, characters and twists than the 1975 Al Pacino movie.  The endless assault on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) did not stop with the surprise arrest of KPK commissioner Bambang Widjojanto on Friday morning.  He was released past midnight after long hours of questioning at the National Police Headquarters over allegations that he instructed witnesses to perjure themselves in a case at the Constitutional Court in 2010 concerning a disputed local election result in Central Kalimantan.

Supporters joined activists occupying the KPK compound all weekend, not just to give moral support to the embattled body, but also for fear that the police would attempt to search the KPK office and seize documents to support their investigations.

The sense of urgency about #save KPK, as the world'€™s top-trending topic on the Twitter social media read, intensified with reports that a businessman was also about to report another KPK commissioner '€” Adnan Pandu Praja '€” to the police for swindling him in 2006. The businessman'€™s lawyer insisted his client had nothing to do with the burgeoning conflict between the KPK and the National Police. Yet another commissioner may also be reported for another case.

To curb corruption we fully support the '€œSave KPK'€ movement. Whatever President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo decides, one first step would be to immediately form an ad hoc ethics committee to investigate all allegations against the KPK leaders.

A former commissioner, who was also a victim of various earlier attempts to weaken the KPK, Bibit Samad,  has said the antigraft body could continue its work even with only one of its four commissioners.  But this would be a mere emergency measure. The sole remaining commissioner would be chairman Abraham Samad, who has also been accused by the Indonesian Democratic party of Struggle (PDI-P) of offering sweet deals to Jokowi'€™s allies in his bid to secure the vice-presidential candidacy in last year'€™s election.

An ethics committee would have to name who was clean and who wasn'€™t '€” a painful measure that would however leave the KPK'€™s credibility intact.

There are too many graft cases that the KPK must resolve, which cannot wait for the decision of the President who has the appearance of being too cautious in his apparent attempt to balance the interests of his political foes and allies.

It is clear that the arrest of Deputy Bambang was an act of retaliation for the KPK naming Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan of the National Police a suspect in a 2010 graft case '€” just as the legislature had accepted the President'€™s nomination of Budi as the sole candidate to be new police chief after dismissing Gen. Sutarman.

Thus we support the demand of citizens '€” many of whom voted for Jokowi '€” that the President order the Police to drop the charges against Bambang. President Jokowi should also withdraw the nomination of Budi, who remains Jokowi'€™s preferred candidate despite having been declared a graft suspect, and seek new, clean candidates.

Indonesia needs its KPK and it also needs its police.