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View all search resultsMuch ado about asset forfeiture
Rushing a flawed asset forfeiture bill to meet a performative political deadline won't stop oligarchs, it will just hand the state a dangerous new weapon against its critics.
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Representative of the protestors from Central Java’s Pati community alliance, Supriyono, attends a meeting to voice grievances to the House of Representatives at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Aug. 27, 2026. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
If drama were a metric of legislative commitment, the asset forfeiture bill would already be law.
The House of Representatives leaders on Aug. 27 signed a written pledge to pass the bill by Dec. 15, or step down. Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad made the promise after meeting protestors from Central Java’s Pati community alliance in the Senayan Legislative Complex, Central Jakarta.
It was political theater at its finest and the audience was supposed to applaud the gesture, not scrutinize the script.
Indonesia does need an asset forfeiture law. We signed on to the World Bank-UNODC Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative, committing on paper to give the state power to seize crime-linked assets without first securing a criminal conviction.
The logic is sound. Corruption in Indonesia has never been just about bribes; it is about accumulation, houses in the upmarket Pondok Indah residential area in South Jakarta; bank accounts in Singapore; or nickel concessions registered under a driver's name.
But the bill the House is rushing to pass by Dec. 15 will not necessarily do that. It will do so little that it might as well be symbolic, and symbolism is dangerous when it comes with coercive power.
The bill in its many incarnations has lingered since 2008. That delay is not simply laziness. It reflects an unresolved tension every version has failed to address: how do you confiscate assets without a criminal verdict, without violating due process and without turning the law into a political weapon?
