“Anticorruption commission needs support of public”, the title of an article I wrote in this newspaper in 2004, was published just three months after the first generation of commissioners of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was appointed and had taken up the challenge of building a new organization from scratch.

Then executive director of the Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia, HS Dillon, who passed away on Sept. 16, had entrusted me with the task of supporting the KPK and making its mandate better known.

I write this article in memory of Pak Dillon, who was very outspoken against corruption in Indonesia, yet optimistic it could be reduced by fostering “capacity from within and pressure from outside”.

Expectations were high that the KPK could achieve something that other law enforcement agencies and previous anti-corruption task forces had not been able to do: end impunity in corruption cases, in particular in cases involving trillions of rupiah and high-profile suspects. It did not disappoint and over the last 15 years the KPK received public attention and support of which other agencies in Indonesia and abroad could only dream.

When I heard that a bill to revise the KPK Law was tabled by outgoing legislators, I thought the President would never consent, that he was supportive of the KPK and owed outgoing lawmakers nothing.

But he did. I thought that with three weeks left in their term, the legislators would not dare and that — going by their track record — they would never get such a controversial bill passed so quickly. I also assumed that there would be mass demonstrations against it.

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