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Move to impeach Ahok may falter as PDI-P, NasDem cool down
Ghost budget busted: People demonstrate their support Monday for Jakarta Governor Basuki âAhokâ Tjahaja Purnamaâs bid to uncover corruption allegedly involving Jakarta City councilors
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Ghost budget busted: People demonstrate their support Monday for Jakarta Governor Basuki âAhokâ Tjahaja Purnamaâs bid to uncover corruption allegedly involving Jakarta City councilors. Ahok has reported Rp 12 trillion in dubious budget allocations to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). He says they were secretly inserted by councilors into the cityâs draft 2015 budget and submitted to the Home Ministry for approval. (JP/Awo) (KPK). He says they were secretly inserted by councilors into the cityâs draft 2015 budget and submitted to the Home Ministry for approval. (JP/Awo)
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span class="inline inline-center">Ghost budget busted: People demonstrate their support Monday for Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama's bid to uncover corruption allegedly involving Jakarta City councilors. Ahok has reported Rp 12 trillion in dubious budget allocations to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). He says they were secretly inserted by councilors into the city's draft 2015 budget and submitted to the Home Ministry for approval. (JP/Awo)
Members of the 106-strong City Council from nine party factions have repeatedly boasted that no one could stop them from ousting Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama.
On Monday, however, at least one party ordered its legislators to backtrack and two other parties gave clear indications they wanted Ahok to stay in his position until 2017.
NasDem Party secretary-general Patrice Rio Capella has instructed his party's five councilors to drop their plan to use their right of inquiry against the outspoken governor. Patrice insisted such a move would only harm the people of
Jakarta.
'The inquiry should be stopped. We have asked all NasDem faction members to abide by the NasDem Party's decision,' Patrice announced, as quoted by several media outlets.
The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) also sent a strong signal that the largest faction in the Council would be firm in supporting the governor and his deputy Djarot Saiful Hidayat, a member of the PDI-P.
Ahok is not affiliated to any political party, having resigned from the Gerindra Party last year. He is said to be close to PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri, their ties becoming stronger after Ahok agreed to pick Djarot as his deputy when Ahok replaced Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo as governor last October.
'Right now, the PDI-P still supports Ahok as the governor of Jakarta,' the party's vice secretary-general Ahmad Basarah announced on Monday.
'What is going on now just local political dynamism,' said Ahmad, adding that the party would summon its councilors for clarification.
The United Development Party (PPP) faction led by Djan Faridz has also instructed its councilors to halt their crusade against the governor. However, Abraham 'Lulung' Lunggana, one of Ahok's bitterest enemies in the council, said he would defy the order.
'I refuse to obey for very objective and substantial reasons,' said Lulung, whose party now has dual, rival leaderships.
Meanwhile, Ahok said there was no turning back and that he would continue the legal process regarding the irregularities found in the 2015 city budget, the cause of the rift between him and the city council members. He also declined to take a more conciliatory tone.
'If this is a cowboy film, then we've drawn our guns,' he told reporters at City Hall on Monday.
Ahok said he had been aware of budget irregularities since 2013 but that he had not been able to report the violations until the electronic budgeting (e-budgeting) system was in place.
'I could not point fingers last year because administration officials and city council members both said they had not entered any suspicious budget allocations,' he said, adding that he had not had any hard evidence.
The rift between the governor and the city council opened when councilors claimed that Ahok had submitted a false budget draft not yet approved by the city council to the Home Ministry.
In response, Ahok said his goal was a transparent working culture, which was not shown in the council's version of the budget; Rp 12.1 trillion (US$931.7 million) of approved programs and projects had been slashed and shifted
to questionable destinations by councilors.
The governor reported the irregularities in the 2015 and 2014 city budgets to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) last Friday, insisting he would not make any compromise.
He has also declared that if the city council is proved right, he is ready to quit his position. 'It is either me or them,' he said.
Ahok said his suspicions had increased after noticing that one of the flagged questionable programs, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices, costing Rp 6 billion per unit, had still not been procured for 49 schools . Some of the tender winners have also been reported to be fake.
