T

he most important tool in stamping out systemic corruption in the country'€™s legal institutions is for President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo to consolidate his power and exert his political will to carry out the task, says a legal activist.

Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta) director Asfinawati said that due to the Corruption Eradication Commission'€™s (KPK) effectiveness in probing graft cases involving some of the country'€™s most important institutions, many in powerful positions are now gunning for the antigraft body'€™s downfall.

The KPK'€™s attempt earlier this year to name current National Police deputy chief Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan as a graft suspect demonstrated the commission'€™s power in its ability to affect high-ranking positions, therefore triggering a response by the police in cracking down on the KPK'€™s operations.

As a result, former KPK commissioners Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjajanto, along with KPK investigator Novel Baswedan, were arrested by the police for their alleged breaches of the law, mostly relating to crimes they are accused of committing in the past.

The President should have been able to rein in the police, Asfinawati said.

'€œThe chief of police [Badrodin Haiti] has the ability and power to control the actions of his subordinates. The police chief should not be able to intervene in the KPK'€™s efforts to investigate cases within the police force. And if the President thinks the police chief is not doing a good job, he has the power to remove him from his position,'€ Asfinawati told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

She added that the police'€™s attempts to prosecute some of the KPK'€™s senior officials were possible because they had taken advantage of the government'€™s period of transition from former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Jokowi.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) activist Adnan Topan Husodo said that the President could only exert his power if he had accumulated enough power to have significant influence on government institutions.

'€œYudhoyono'€™s government had a bigger ability to influence authority figures in the country because the government was helped by the fact that the President was also a political party leader. With Jokowi, he does not have that kind of power yet and therefore [his administration] is more prone to chaos. His government truly needs to be able to balance and assert its power,'€ Adnan said.

Political commentator Rocky Gerung said that given the severity of corruption problems in the country, the KPK needed to wield extraordinary power and that any efforts to curtail such an authority should be stopped.

'€œWe need an anticorruption institution which is able to have a higher authority than any other institution. Counterterrorism agencies, for example, have special powers granted to them to allow the identification of possible suspects as well. In this context, the KPK has to '€˜abuse its power'€™ for the sake of its work,'€ Rocky said.