Corruption remains an intractable issue to resolve in Indonesia 75 years after the country became independent.

The present-day antigraft campaign has been largely spearheaded by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which was established in late 2003 because of low public trust in the police and the Attorney General's Office.

The KPK was quick to uncover two corruption cases throughout its first year of operation. In 2018, it uncovered 199 corruption cases, the highest yearly number of cases the commission has investigated.

Yet corruption persists. Many modern-day scholars believed that it has become an inseparable part of Indonesia’s culture. A similar view was shared by the country's first vice president, M. Hatta, in 1974, according to history magazine historia.id.

Recent pollsters also said that Indonesians were growing more permissive toward petty corruption, a trend experts fear could motivate major acts of corruption.

In early July, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD denied such a notion, saying that corruption was merely an individual crime and did not represent Indonesia’s identity.

“Indonesia has been known as a nation that upholds moral values since the old time, so corruption is clearly not a part of our culture,” he said.

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