The arrest of South Sulawesi Governor Nurdin Abdullah by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is another example of how even the best politician with a clean and progressive track record can face graft charges. Nurdin rose to prominence thanks to his reform-minded programs as the regent of Bantaeng, where he set up a new healthcare system, created jobs in agriculture and industry, while also implementing a merit-based system in local bureaucracy.

For all those achievements during his two terms as regent between 2008 and 2018, he won the prestigious Bung Hatta anticorruption award. His arrest was shocking, yet it was also familiar.

In fact, he is not the first reform-minded official to have become embroiled in graft.

Former home minister Gamawan Fauzi received the Bung Hatta award while serving as a regent in West Sumatra. Yet in 2016, Gamawan was at the center of a massive scandal involving corruption that plagued the roll-out of the country’s electronic ID (e-ID) program. KPK investigators have questioned Gamawan multiple times, following the antigraft body’s move to name his former aide Irman a suspect in the case, which cost the state around US$154 million in losses.

We can go back further and find figures like Andi Mallaranging, one of the darlings of the Reform movement, who was sentenced in 2014 to four years in prison for his role in a graft case related to the construction of the Hambalang sports complex in Bogor, West Java.

The list could go on and on, but it should give us an idea of the pervasiveness of the web of corruption suffocating the country’s bureaucracy that it literally takes a saint-like figure like former Supreme Court justice Artidjo Alkostar, who passed away last week with assets of only Rp 300 million (US$20,949) to his name. Among graft convicts, Artidjo was dubbed “the killer” for increasing their prison terms.

It should not be this way. The system itself, whether it is the bureaucracy or the political set-up, should be equipped with enough fail-safe mechanisms to allow graft-prevention measures to work, so that the rate of success does not rely on individuals’ personal traits.

Unfortunately, in the case of Nurdin, the political system in which he operates demands that even the best-intentioned person must compromise his values to succeed. The local election system for instance relies heavily on political coalitions to nominate candidates to run in the polls. Things are also particularly complicated in South Sulawesi, as well in any other clan-dominated district or province, where political candidates have to navigate their way around the vast patronage networks built by powerful families.

This should not imply that Nurdin is a victim of the situation. He was a willing participant, but unless measures are taken to dismantle that network of corruption, we may run out of good people soon.

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