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Commentary: In fight against corruption, #GueAhok. Are you?
A controversial figure with a notorious habit of scolding and cursing in public, Jakarta Governor Basuki âAhokâ Tjahaja Purnama is not an easy man to support
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controversial figure with a notorious habit of scolding and cursing in public, Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama is not an easy man to support. Many of his policies and actions during his two-year tenure as deputy governor and almost four months as governor are subject to criticism.
His endorsement of the central government's plan to build six inner-city toll roads, for example, has been lambasted by many urban planners. His eviction of squatters living along riverbanks, while blaming them for the city's flooding, has been met with protests from those who are concerned about the widening income gap in Jakarta, as evident in the rise of its Gini index from 0.364 in 2013 to 0.436 in 2014.
Of course, non-partisan Ahok has many fans who defend him in the social media and even on the street. Last week, several people bearing the tagline #GueAhok, the Betawi equivalent of 'Je suis Ahok', rallied during the Car Free Day in response to Ahok's latest standoff with the City Council over Jakarta's draft 2015 budget.
The latest dispute between them involves councilors' attempts to unseat Ahok, which quickly backfired with the governor's revelation of a whopping Rp 12.1 trillion (US$937 million) black hole in the city's budget that was allegedly earmarked to be stolen by the 106 city councilors.
Very few citizens are throwing their weight behind the councilors, owing to the stigma of corruption that attaches to politicians. In fact, many politicians have been convicted, or at least named suspects, of graft.
But it does not mean that Ahok has easily won the support of the people. Many are wary of his short temper and brusque manner and they ask good questions.
Does Ahok have evidence that the councilors intended to loot the Rp 12.1 trillion, about one-sixth of the city budget? Did he do his calculations accurately? What exactly is this so-called 'dana siluman' (sneaky budget)? Were the allocations discussed with the administration as the councilors claim? And what is this electronic-budgeting (e-budgeting)?
Gradually, each day, Ahok has managed to answer the doubts of many people and candidly reveal the stories behind the dispute and so far his version has not only become more plausible but has been backed up by documents, some of which are in the hands of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
He even uploaded two versions of the budget drafts on his personal site ahok.org and the city administration's website, jakarta.go.id.
The public can see for themselves that the infamous allocations for uninterruptible power systems (UPS) worth Rp 6 billion per school do exist in the councilors' version and not in the city administration's version, which used e-budgeting. The public can also find other questionable allocations like the Rp 3 billion allocated for a 3D printer for a school.
History should record that for the first time a governor has opened up such important information to the public. In the past draft city budgets were not made available to the public. The councilors have never denied that there are two versions of drafts and the one in Microsoft Excel (XLS) format is theirs.
When many people assumed there was no way the city's executives were not involved in posting 'dana siluman', Ahok explained that indeed some of them were in the past. That was why he demoted several agency heads.
The executives stopped the practice this year because of the e-budgeting and the reshuffle of all agency heads last January. Ahok made no secret of why he demoted those people, some he dubbed 'players' and some, like former Transportation Agency head M. Akbar, worked 'too slowly'.
While fear of being demoted and humiliated spread among high-ranking civil servants, Ahok introduced the e-budgeting system. The system made any changes traceable, so this year none in the executives dared to tinker, Ahok said.
This has forced the councilors to resort to manually retyping the entries from the PDF format to read-only XLS tables.
Ahok claims he has evidence of CCTV recordings at the council building showing the councilors' assistants working day and night, glued to their computers, typing, three days after the plenary session approved the draft budget on Jan. 27.
Ahok said the council did not give him the copy of the budget during the plenary session as usual, but only later. Councilors have denied the accusation, insisting that their version is the legitimate one and the allocations have been approved by both executives and legislators, while the e-budget version is unilaterally Ahok's.
Ahok countered this argument by gathering hundreds of his subordinates last week and asking each of them to sign a statement about which version of the budget they approved, the city administration's or the council's. All of them aligned with Team Ahok, although the councilors say this is the result of intimidation.
So is it about Ahok versus the City Council? No, Ahok said. 'Don't make it about me or the council,' he said. 'This is about the fight for budget transparency.'
He really seems to know what he is doing, throwing a magic word like 'transparency' out to a public hungry for clean politicians, which so far he has shown himself to be. Considering his lack of political currency as a double-minority member, a person without refinement in manners and someone with a lot of political enemies and no political party affiliation, being clean is his blue chip in furthering his political career.
So you may not agree with him on a lot of issues, but in the fight against corruption, #GueAhok. Are you?
