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n Thursday morning President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo made a surprise announcement on the screening team for the new leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The nine members of the team are all women, without any of the men previously touted to fill the seats. Jokowi has declined to elaborate, but controversy had already marked the selection of the team members.

Were it not for the earlier political crisis involving the KPK and the National Police, the screening team would not have made headlines. So let'€™s hope for the best. At least the figures, who are from the public and private sectors and include anti graft activists and academics, do not have questionable track records in regard to graft, compared to previous candidates whom critics had queried because they had testified on behalf of graft suspects.

The screening team is headed by Bank Mandiri chief economist Destry Damayanti with deputy Enny Nurbaningsih, a constitutional law expert. Other members are Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, a criminal code and human rights expert at the Law and Human Rights Ministry; Betti Alisjahbana, a former CEO of PT IBM Indonesia and a member of the Bung Hattta Anti Corruption Award (BHACA) Association; Natalia Subagyo, of BHACA and Transparency International, a global NGO on graft; Yenti Garnasih, a money-laundering expert; Supra Wimbarti, an expert in psychology and education; Diani Sadiawati, a legal expert at the National Development Planning Board; and sociologist Meuthia Ganie-Rochman.

Their task is far from easy: to help restore public trust in the KPK by selecting and recommending figures that Jokowi says must possess '€œcomplete capability to strengthen the commission and improve the synergy between the commission and other law enforcement institutions'€.

Since the KPK was established in 2004 the public has witnessed constant attacks on its leadership and its authority, attacks that culminated this year, ironically under Jokowi whom many had hailed as coming from outside the old political elite.

While many had expected such consequences from a green outsider holding the levers of power, the public was nevertheless shocked at the arrest of KPK deputy Bambang Widjojanto in April and the criminalization of KPK chairman Abraham Samad and investigators. This occurred after the KPK named the former sole candidate for the police chief position, Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, a graft suspect '€“ who apparently enjoyed greater support among the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) than from the President.

The ruling coalition under the PDI-P and the President seem to have toned down their rift, and the new police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti is attempting to rein in his subordinates, but worries remain over the KPK leaders who still have several months to the end of their term. Even though its first chairman Taufiequrrahman Ruki is serving as acting leader, questions linger over how much the KPK is being sacrificed to reach '€œsynergy'€ with the police.

Therefore at least the appointment of the nine women for the screening team of new KPK leaders brings some hope '€“ with the only regret being that a few of them might be better as candidates themselves.