T

he Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party has come out top in being the most transparent and accountable political party in the management of their finances, a survey has found.

Transparency International Indonesia (TII) found that Gerindra, the political party of former Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) commander Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto, scored 3.74 on a scale of 4 by being transparent in the management of its finances, including full disclosure of its donors, reporting party assets and other bookkeeping details.

Two other political parties, the People's Conscience (Hanura) Party and the National Awakening Party (PKB) were found to be the least transparent or accountable political parties with respective scores of 2.41 and 2.31.

For the survey, TII looked at the financial reports of five political parties: Gerindra, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Hanura and the PKB.

The survey was conducted between June 2012 and April 2013.

In the survey, PAN and the PDI-P came in second and third with scores of 3.64 and 3.10, respectively.

The antigraft watchdog also concluded that there could be a correlation between a political party's transparency and the quality of its politicians.

Four political parties, the United Development Party (PPP), the Democratic Party, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Golkar Party declined to participate in the survey, reinforcing the notion they could be the country's most corrupt political parties. Former chairman of the Democratic Party, Anas Urbaningrum, and the former chairman of the PKS, Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, have been named suspects by the KPK, while several Golkar politicians have been implicated in graft.

'We can only monitor the behavior of members who come from transparent and accountable parties,' Putut Aryo, a TII researcher, said.

Putut added, however, that the TII had not yet determined why some parties were more transparent than others.

'We have not reached that stage; this was preliminary research. However, we will have a follow-up study in September,' Putut said.

Lucky Djani from the Institute of Strategic Initiatives said that transparency was crucial for political parties to build an image that, ultimately, could be translated into votes.

'Transparency is the political 'currency' to gain public trust. People will only vote for transparent parties,' Lucky said.

He said the public would reach their own conclusions about the political parties that failed to join the survey.

'People will label these parties as uncooperative,' Lucky said.

The TII sent letters to all political parties last year requesting that they participate in the assessment.

Golkar Party lawmaker Priyo Budi Santoso said he was surprised by the TII's claim that his party had not responded to a request from the watchdog.

'As far as I know, Golkar is always open to scrutiny as long as it is conducted by professionals who don't cherry-pick on certain issues,' Priyo said.

Senior PKS politician Hidayat Nur Wahid, meanwhile, maintained that his party had not received an invitation to join the survey.

'I haven't heard of their survey [...] but it would be good if the TII was equally transparent about its
finances,' Hidayat said. (ogi)