With the KPK losing its power and riddled by a series of scandals of its own, and with the judiciary being seen as overly lenient toward graft convicts, the nation’s corruption perception index (CPI) score tumbled for the first time in 13 years from 40 in 2019 to 37 last year, dragging the country back to the bottom half of the Transparency International CPI rankings, at 102nd out of 180 nations. In 2019, it stood in 85th place.

Vedi Hadiz, a social scientist who has spent decades researching political corruption in the country, said it was time for the progressive elements of Indonesian civil society to rethink their antigraft strategy.

“With the elimination of the KPK as an effective actor, it is now back to progressive civil society activists or organizations […] to coordinate and enhance their capability, and more importantly to fire up the imagination of the public, to harness as wide as possible a coalition of interests within broader civil society to fight graft, because graft only suits the interests of those who have the power to commit graft and infringes on the interests of everybody else in society,” he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

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The national effort to eradicate corruption has suffered major blows in recent years, with the public, led by NGOs and activists, seemingly unable to contain what is believed to be a systematic attempt by political elites to roll back democratic reforms, primarily by debilitating the KPK through co-opting and legislative amendment.

Going easy on graft convicts