T

he committee tasked with selecting Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) commissioners closed the registration on Friday after receiving applications from more than 500 candidates.

As the next step in the selection, the team called on the public to give input on the candidates'€™ backgrounds.

The committee is set to announce the names of candidates who meet the administrative requirements on Saturday afternoon.

In the announcement, the committee is expected to give the personal and professional backgrounds of candidates who will proceed to the next round.

'€œWe hope the public will participate by providing input on their track records after we announce the names on Saturday,'€ team chairman Destry Damayanti said on Friday.

The team, which was established by President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo in May, will select five new commissioners to replace current KPK leaders whose tenures end in December.

The team will propose eight final candidates to the President, who will submit the names of those selected to the House of Representatives for screening later this year.

The eight will join two candidates picked by a selection team set up by then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: former KPK commissioner Busyro Muqoddas and Cabinet Secretariat international relations division head Robby Arya.

Destry further said that a number of civil society organizations had also expressed their commitment to conducting independent background checks to ensure that only credible candidates would go the next round of the selection.

The committee will also publish the list of selected candidates on setneg.go.id until Aug. 3 for the public to scrutinize.

Transparency International Indonesia (TII) and Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) both said recently that they, along with other NGOs, would participate in the independent background checks.

By Thursday, 538 applicants had registered with the team and 40 more signed up on Friday. However, according to Destry, only half of the total number of applicants had submitted complete paperwork by the last day of registration.

Although she predicted that only around 200 people would meet the administrative requirements, Destry said that the high number of applicants indicated that the public continued to back the antigraft campaign.

'€œThis is surprising for us. Since the beginning, we never set a target for the number of applicants because we are focusing more on the quality of each person. This number shows that people are still concerned about the [future] of the KPK,'€ she said.

Last week, the committee extended the deadline for candidates to register for the positions until July 3 in order to give more time for potential candidates to apply. The deadline was also extended because only roughly half of the 234 applicants at that time had yet to submit complete paperwork to meet the administrative requirements.

Destry also assured that the entire selection would be fair and transparent. '€œWe won'€™t prioritize anyone regardless of their institutional background or gender,'€ she said.

A number of KPK officials, former and active National Police officers and retired and active Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel are among the applicants.