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newly established committee tasked with selecting commissioners for the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) received opinions on ideal criteria for future KPK leadership on Friday.

The team held separate closed-door meetings with KPK secretary-general Himawan Adinegoro and its research and development unit members, and two-time past selection team member Imam B. Prasodjo, who is a University of Indonesia (UI) sociology professor, at the State Secretariat on Friday.

Imam shared his experiences about past selection processes with the committee, while KPK representatives shared their research on the ideal criteria for a KPK commissioner.

'€œWe aim to understand what kind of situation and challenges the KPK is facing, as well as the profile of the organization and the manpower itself, because those things also show what type of leadership they need,'€ team spokesperson Betti S. Alisjahbana, who is also an IT and management expert, said on Friday after the meetings.

Following a recent standoff between the KPK and the National Police in which the police appeared to dig up past criminal cases to prosecute KPK commissioners who were active at that time, the team has said it would try to reduce such potential conflicts by thoroughly examining candidates'€™ track records.

The committee has said it will involve the antigraft body itself, along with the police and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK), for background checks on candidates for the positions.

Betti has also said the team would seek opinions from the police and the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) regarding frequent standoffs involving the police and the antigraft body.

The committee is set to start accepting applications and kick off the selection process on June 5.

'€œI gave them input about also involving an independent team to track and scrutinize their backgrounds,'€ Imam added.

Imam said one of the challenges for future KPK leaders was a recent pretrial decision that has raised doubt on whether the KPK has the authority to hire independent investigators.

Just recently, a pretrial hearing decided in favor of former tax office boss Hadi Purnomo and declared the KPK'€™s investigation into him '€œinvalid'€ on the basis that the agency'€™s investigators were '€œillegal'€ because they did not come from the police or the prosecutor'€™s office.

According to Imam, he also advised the team that they should look into whether or not the candidates intended to seek strategic posts which posed potential conflicts of interest with the KPK, should their tenure as KPK leaders end.

Representing the KPK, Himawan told reporters that they discussed what the KPK leadership would face in the future, saying that they provided the committee with 17 criteria that a KPK leader should meet.

'€œOne of those [criteria] is integrity,'€ he added.