E

lectoral corruption, to cite the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), is part of political corruption committed by politicians prior to staying in power. The politician employs all legal and illegal means during the election period to persuade voters.

Yet other parties could involve informal and religious leaders, businesspeople, gangsters, journalists, police and judges.

Corruption in elections may involve services and facilities extended to the politician and party. John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney provide a broader picture, that electoral corruption is the conspiracy between money and media, '€œbuilt on a set of commercial and institutional relationship'€, including '€œwealthy donors, giant corporations, lobbyists, ['€¦], politicians ['€¦], corporate media, coin-operated think tanks'€ and so on.

Donatella della Porta and Alberto Vannucci rightly widened electoral corruption: '€œControlling the nominations to public bodies and the career of political actors, the parties can generalize the kickback, transforming corruption from an exception into an established practice with accepted norms ['€¦], guaranteeing the continuity of the system over time despite changes in the political personnel of the public administration.'€

Thus, electoral corruption may take place before and after an election as investment is needed to make profit and repay all debt.

Therefore, one must understand the election stages and where electoral corruption occurs '€” across the stages of preparations, the election and the post-election stage.

In legislative elections, for instance, electoral graft can be found during party registration and verification, voter registration, determination of the provisional and final voters'€™ list, determination of electoral districts, nomination, campaigning, voting and vote counting, vote recapitulation and determination of election result. After elections, corruption can take place when the results are challenged at the Constitutional Court.

At the preparatory stage, corruption could have occurred, for instance, during the selection of election commissioners that involve politicians.

For the presidential elections, corruption can occur from voter registration to vote recapitulation '€” which is all repeated in the case of a run-off '€” up to the possible challenging of results at the Constitutional Court. All three stages in the gubernatorial, regental and mayoral elections also provide huge space to corrupt the election process.

Generally money politics comprise candidacy buying and vote buying. The ICW finds these have included distributing money during campaigning, religious gatherings, distribution of basic commodities, infrastructural funds, tuition, transportation, free medical aid and others.

Almost every losing candidate has revealed paying a certain amount of money to be included on the candidate list submitted by parties to the Election Commission. Nomination fees are higher for the executive than legislative posts.

Former South Jakarta police chief Adang Daradjatun was among those who reportedly paid billions of rupiah to be a Jakarta governor candidate. One can only imagine the '€œnomination fees'€ for over 650 posts for regional heads alone.

Since campaigning across the vast nation involves visits, meetings, commercials, billboards, donations and distributing campaign memorabilia, it reinforces views that elections are the domain of the rich and the super-rich.

Therefore, funds from the state, individuals and the private sector are indispensable to political campaigning and the management of political office. Relying on membership dues is impossible, while state funds have become insignificant.

In 1999, 48 parties contested the general elections; too many players reduced the share of big parties, thus state funds were substantially reduced. In the 2014 election, only 12 parties could contest the elections.

As Marcus Mietzner notes, major parties could survive reduced state subsidies given their established business networks. Given the strong interdependency between parties and the business community, reforms become unlikely.

All major parties maintain close relationships with the same business groups because business was controlled by the same conglomerates from the Soeharto era. Whoever wins the election will have to deal with the same conglomerates '€” the ones who benefit from elections.

The General Election Commission'€™s authority includes monitoring contributions for political parties '€” but what is to be audited if contributions and expenses are not properly recorded? Also, not all contributions go to party accounts, but also their leaders.

So no one knows whether all contributions received by party individuals will be transferred to the party accounts. Incumbent politicians directly or indirectly use some state facilities during campaigns, which should be added to campaign expenses reported to the Commission. The ICW found that actual expenses exceeded the reports filed to the Commission.

With unreported contributions and campaign expenses in all election stages, actual funds controlled and owned by politicians and political parties are anyone'€™s guess.

At least three propositions have been raised to curb electoral graft: state financing for political parties; campaign finance reform; and public control.

Reliance mostly on large corporations makes the parties hostages to the contributors'€™ interests, as the politicians and parties must return the favors after elections '€” such as by awarding large procurement contracts, plantation and mining permits.

 Between 2001 and 2005 Indonesia'€™s state funding for political parties has been cut by 90 percent. This is a setback; even though parties avoided state intervention through public funding, they increasingly relied on private financing especially from large conglomerations, which contradicts parties'€™ functions as institutions representing the constituents'€™ aggregate interests.

Unsurprisingly, parties have become hollow institutions flying party banners with neither political persona nor appeal.

Democracy is the only viable alternative to prevent government from abusing authority. State funding is, therefore, the '€œcost of democracy'€, as Jonathan Mendilow states, to enable all politicians and parties engage in open and fair competition. State funding would curb excessive election spending and encourage parties to represent constituents'€™ interests.

Indonesia must decide whether to retain today'€™s electoral process where politicians and parties are controlled by wealthy individuals and large business donors, or whether we could achieve incremental changes where politicians and parties genuinely strive for the people'€™s best interest. Do we want an inexpensive but corrupt democracy '€” or an expensive but uncorrupt democracy?

Presently, maximum political contributions are Rp 1 billion and Rp 4 billion per year per individual and per corporation respectively.

For legislative elections, each year a party can receive contributions up to Rp 1 billion from an individual and Rp 7.5 billion from a corporation. However, contributions from politicians and their relatives are unregulated; such contributions are treated as internal sources of funding although real contributions come from third parties, individuals or corporations.

Poor reporting and weak auditing have contributed to the laissez faire electoral process, without any effective regulatory mechanism.

Therefore, the incumbent and major parties will always lead every level of contestation. Change would be impossible through an orderly process '€” except by social upheavals. Therefore, guaranteeing a level playing field is vital through a campaign finance reform.

We have learned the hard way that it is too dangerous to let the parties solicit and receive funds from wealthy individuals and large corporations without adequate regulatory mechanisms, public monitoring and control '€” democracy merely becomes their playground.

Many politicians and activists have urged the state to fund political parties, to curb political and electoral corruption and to acquire a more equal, fair and free competition.

Every stakeholder must participate in formulating political and campaign financing reform. Public monitoring and control must also be institutionalized. Failure to ensure transparency and accountability would perpetuate political and electoral corruption.
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The above is abridged from the writer'€™s lecture to the Asia Research Center, Murdoch University, Perth, on Feb. 19. The writer is a lawyer with Lubis, Santosa and Maramis Law Firm in Jakarta.