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nti-corruption watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has challenged the country'€™s political parties to demonstrate financial transparency as well as accountability before receiving a substantial increase in annual funding from the government.

Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo recently unveiled a plan to increase annual funding to a maximum of Rp 1 trillion (US$76.75 million) for each political party, a plan that the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician said could be feasible within five years, after the 2019 elections.

Tjahjo, a former lawmaker for 27 years, argued that increasing state funding for political parties would support a pillar of democracy and repair the image of politicians and their parties, which had been tainted by graft cases in the past decade, since they would be forced to exercise accountability for such huge amounts of state support.

Tjahjo stressed on Tuesday that the Rp 1 trillion funding would not be equally distributed to all parties should the plan eventually be executed. This followed criticism of the plan, including from Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who said '€œeverybody would set up their own political parties if all were granted equal amounts'€.

Concurring with Kalla, Tjahjo said that once the plan was implemented the government would grant the money according to the number of votes each party secured in legislative elections.

Political parties that pass voting thresholds during legislative elections have received annual state funding since the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Funding for each party is calculated based on the number of votes garnered during the election. The government has allocated Rp 13.78 billion for 10 political parties this year, with the largest allocation of Rp 2.55 billion for the PDI-P, which won the 2014 legislative election.

Previously, a total of nine political parties received Rp 9.1 billion annually, with the largest sum of Rp 2.3 billion going to Yudhoyono'€™s Democratic Party, the victor in the 2009 election.

The ICW encouraged political parties to instead first prove that they were worthy of more financial support from the state by taking measures to curb corrupt practices among their members.

Politicians are at the top of a list of actors in ICW'€™s latest study of corruption trends in Indonesia.

The study recorded that there were on average 1,200 corruption suspects every year, among whom were members of Regional Legislative Councils (DPRD) and local leaders. The group found that 87 party politicians sitting on DPRDs were involved in a total of 629 graft cases last year, which caused state losses of Rp 5.29 trillion.

In 2013, the group recorded that a total of 60 local councilors were involved in 560 cases.

Forty-seven local leaders affiliated with political parties were also responsible for state losses, said the study. This was an increase from 35 local leaders in 2013.

Tama S. Langkun from the ICW'€™s investigative division said '€œthe 47 local leaders involved in graft cases recorded during 2014 were not necessarily party members'€.

'€œBut they all are affiliated to political parties in one way or another. Some of them, for example, were endorsed by a political party or a coalition of political parties,'€ Tama told a discussion following the launch of the study at the House of Representatives complex on Tuesday.

According to ICW'€™s study, the largest number of local leaders, 17 individuals, involved in graft cases in 2014 were affiliated with the Golkar Party, with Democratic Party-affiliated leaders in second place.

The study placed local administrators at the top of the list when it came to corruption, with infrastructure and regional budgets as the sectors that were most often embezzled.

Although the study did not directly relate the involvement of corrupt politicians to questionable funding of parties, Tama pointed out that '€œpoliticians are expected to provide cash to parties as a form of payback for their endorsement'€.

'€œThey [political parties] can reassure us that they are ready for greater financial aid from the state by opening their books to us to prove that this is wrong. This can be done through transparency and accountability,'€ he added.