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Dubious KPK candidates still in running

A committee tasked with selecting the next batch of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) commissioners says it will not automatically reject candidates who have received a bad rap from the public

Fedina S. Sundaryani and Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sun, August 23, 2015 Published on Aug. 23, 2015 Published on 2015-08-23T09:14:11+07:00

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Dubious KPK candidates still in running

A

committee tasked with selecting the next batch of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) commissioners says it will not automatically reject candidates who have received a bad rap from the public.

The team'€™s spokesman Betty Alisjabana made the announcement following Indonesia Corruption Watch'€™s (ICW) declaration on Friday evening that 10 out of 19 of the candidates had questionable track records.

'€œWe are working with various institutions, all of which will fact check [the candidates'€™ backgrounds] and submit the results to us. We can'€™t declare that a candidate is problematic simply based on the report of one institution,'€ she told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

On Friday afternoon, ICW members Febri Hendri and Emerson Yuntho submitted their report on the candidates based on three weeks'€™ research. In the week since the naming of the 19 candidates who had passed the latest stage, Febri said, the antigraft watchdog had received reports that cast a negative light on 10 of the candidates.

'€œWe measured the candidates based on three aspects: integrity, quality and administration. [Based on the findings] a candidate could be problematic in more than one way,'€ Febri said after meeting with the committee.

He said that ICW found there were candidates whose businesses had been implicated in past human rights abuses or tax problems, candidates with political interests and also candidates who had mismanaged funds and could potentially have committed graft themselves.

Febri also said that there were three candidates from law enforcement institutions who had not performed well when investigating graft cases. Furthermore, there were candidates who had too little experience and training in corruption eradication.

'€œWe have also found that there are candidates who lack conviction in the corruption eradication program and would not perform well [as KPK leaders],'€ he said, adding that some of the candidates also got their degrees from higher education institutions of questionable repute.

'€œWe hope that the committee will take our findings into consideration,'€ Febri said.

Betty said she appreciated the efforts of the ICW, one of the two civil society groups assisting the committee in the search for candidates, but emphasized that all information needed to be verified before it could be considered.

'€œThere has been some contradictory information from several different institutions and we must evaluate and verify the information first to make sure that we are only dealing with facts,'€ she said.

The short-listed candidates include three people from the KPK, five from the National Police, the Attorney General'€™s Office and the judiciary and three academics.

Notable names include KPK commissioner Johan Budi, former Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Yotje Mende and former Constitutional Court chief justice Jimly Asshidiqie.

After the eight final names are submitted to President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo on Aug. 31, he will then submit the names of those selected to the House of Representative for deliberation later this year.

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

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