T

he National Police announced their plan on Friday to nominate three generals as candidates to fill positions on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

'€œWe will soon nominate two active officers and one retiree [as candidates],'€ National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti told reporters at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta.

Badrodin, however did not give details about the three candidates.

This is the first time the police had declared an intention to join the selection process for the KPK leadership positions.

Until recently, the National Police only seconded low- and middle ranking officers to join the KPK'€™s team of investigators.

Relations between the National Police and the KPK have been tense for months following the antigraft body'€™s decision to name then police chief candidate Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan a graft suspect. Although his suspect status was eventually annulled by a court, the now suspended KPK commissioners, Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto, alongside top KPK investigator Novel Baswedan, were slapped with criminal charges by a close acquaintance of Gunawan, detective division chief Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso.

Gunawan was eventually inaugurated as deputy police chief in April.

Badrodin dismissed allegations that the National Police were trying to infiltrate the antigraft body and maintained that having one of their personnel as one of the KPK'€™s commissioners could potentially strengthen the KPK since the officer would have a full understanding of the corruption laws.

Furthermore, it could also mend ties between the two institutions, he said.

'€œThis would make our objective of eradicating corruption much more achievable,'€ Badrodin said.

On Tuesday, Yenti Garnasih, a member of the KPK commissioner selection team, announced that police and military personnel who registered must be prepared to resign from their current positions in their respective institutions if they were selected.

'€œOf course, they must be ready to resign [from their positions]. Those are the rules,'€ she said.

By Thursday, the all-female selection team had received more than 60 applicants, most of whom came from law or civil servant backgrounds.

The registration period, which ends on June 24, would be followed by a month-long screening process, during which the team will allow the public to assess the candidates.

During the same period, the team plans to involve the KPK, the National Police and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK), among other institutions, to conduct background checks on each candidate.

Badrodin said that he had already given suggestions on the criteria for a KPK commissioner and that the force was '€œready to conduct background checks on those nominated'€.

The committee will also invite former members of past selection teams to help run the background checks.

Separately, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Agus Sunaryanto said the National Police had every right to nominate candidates as long as they did not pressure the selection committee into picking them.

'€œThis means that the committee must be objective. However, I think that the committee is well aware of that, having learned from what happened in the past,'€ he said.

However, Agus suggested that it would be best to select commissioners from outside of the police force and the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO).

Agus also warned that the committee faced a daunting task of selecting the right people for the job given the extremely weak position of the KPK.