Muddled Local Election Candidacy and Eradicating Corruption

Local Electoral Commission (KPUD) of Manado recently announced that Jimmy Rimba Rogi is qualified to run again as candidate mayor of the city. The former mayor is currently a client or inmate in a penitentiary. Based on letter No. PAS 1.PK.01.05-07 from the Ministry of Law and Human Rights (Kemenkumham), Jimmy will continue to be under supervision of Manado Penitentiary until December 29, 2017.

Meaning, despite being allowed to live outside the prison walls, Jimmy Rimba Rogi is still officially serving his sentence. He has the same status as Elly Engelbert Lasut who was released on parole until 2016. However, KPUD decided against his candidacy due to Elly's probation status. Elly sued KPUD of North Sulawesi at the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu) of North Sulawesi, which ruled that KPUD's decision have conformed with the law.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) and a number of civil-society organizations reported an alleged electoral violation by KPUD Manado for approving the candidacy of Jimmy Rimba Rogi as Mayor of Manado with support from the National Mandate Party (PAN) and Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra). Bawaslu then responded by issuing recommendations in a circulated letter officially addressed to Bawaslu provincial offices as well as Election Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) municipal/regency offices.

In its letter, Bawaslu RI asserted that candidates who are still on parole from a criminal sentence cannot participate in local elections. Bawaslu considered convicts in probation cannot be labeled as ex-convict as defined by the ruling of the Constitutional Court (MK) No. 42/PUUXIII/2015 on a judicial review of article 7 letter g of Law No. 8/2015 about Local Elections.

The cases involving Jimmy Rimba Rogi and Elly Engelbert Lasut is not only significant in the context of election, but also in corruption eradication. Both men were elected local leaders in each region who used their position to commit corruption. Greedily, according to Ruling No. 69 K/PID.SUS/2010, Jimmy Rimba Rogi stole Rp 64,137,075,000 from the state. Seeing that he was released on parole on December 24, 2014, it is safe to conclude that Jimmy failed to pay restitution, thus adding his sentence term from 5 years to 7 years.

In this case, it becomes necessary to put the corruption eradication commitment of political parties into the spotlight. The controversy surrounding this candidacy should not have even started if political parties are committed to eradicate corruption by not supporting candidates with poor track record related to corruption. Although MK had opened a space for convicts to run as local leaders without interval period, political parties should cadres who have a good track record and integrity. By supporting corruption convicts, prisoners and suspects, political parties will only harm themselves as well as their constituents.

Candidates with poor track record, especially those who betray the people by committing corruption, certainly have greater potential to cheat in election process and liberally return to corruption if they are elected as leaders. Candidacy of convicts, prisoners and suspects will also damage internal party recruitment and regeneration. Party cadres will not be concerned with political track records and integrity when they are supported to run for a public office.***

Encouraging Open Information on Corruption Cases

The regime of open information demands availability of public information in all sectors, including law enforcement. The Law on Public Information Openness No. 14/2008, consider law enfrorcement institutions as a public office, thus having an inherent responsibility to provide and present public information.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) use this momentum to demand the Police Force (Polri) and Attorney General Office (Kejagung) to be more open in their treatment of corruption cases, particularly about case progress. Therefore, the public can access reliable information about the cases that are being handled in each office.

ICW recently published monitoring results on treatment of corruption cases under investigation which revealed huge gap in information. According to data published by Polri, the Corruption Crimes Directorate (Dirtipidkor) at the Police Criminal Investigation Unit (Bareskrim) handled 5,485 cases from early 2010 until late 2014. For the same period, ICW recorded only 536 corruption cases being investigated by Dirtipidkor. This gap of information could be caused by a numbe of factors, particularly the lack of publicly available and easily accessible integrated system at law enforcement offices.

Compared to Polri and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), ICW's data shows that Kejagung handled more cases the other law enforcement institutions. During 2010-2014, at the Attorney General Office, ICW recorded 1,775 cases that were processed up to the investigation phase. Since then, there have been progress on around 900 cases, while about 800 other cases have no clear information. This leaves the public with no way of knowing whether the cases are stalled in investigation, officially terminated (SP3), or at the courts.

Official data from Kejagung mentioned that in 2013, only 364 out of 1,646 cases (22.1%) were pursued with investigation, while it doesn't provide information about the status of the other 1,282 cases. ICW recorded that Kejagung only provide 20% to 30% of its cases as public information.

ICW also noted the importance of evaluating the Attorney General Information System (SIMKARI). This is an internet-based system that is designed to store, manage and present data on corruption case management for the public. Despite having been tested at regional branches in 2011 – 2013 and having spent Rp 131.9 billion for development, the system failed to provide an optimal service for the public. With such a big budget, the information provided is minimal.

The fundamental problem encountered by law enforcement institution could actually be solved. First of all, this requires a strong commitment and seriousness of public officials to record cases in their offices, then to publish these records.

Attorney General need to open public information about corruption cases being handled in all levels at their corps, from Kejaksaan Negeri (Local Attorney), Kejaksaan Tinggi (Provincial Attorney) up to Kejaksaan Agung (Attorney General). This corps had started development of the SIMKARI application, a tool that have the potential to actually serve public needs for information.

The Corruption Crimes Directorate at Polri, meanwhile, could coordinate officers in their ranks down to Resort Police (Polres) to regularly publish case progress at their offices. For example, every 6 (six) months Dirtipidkor can release information about case description, date of investigation commenced, initials and position of suspects, amount of state loss and date of investigation ended (P21).

And second, the government also need to increase human resources at these offices and develop their capacity to manage data and information as intended by the Law of Public Information. Law enforcement offices are undeniably low on staffs capable of information management - they consider information management as merely burden of additional tasks - and these works are not defined in a clear functional structure and hierarchy.

Public information can be used as a space to display performance achievements of law enforcement offices in eradicating corruption. The availability of public information can be used to gain public trust, as KPK have long recognized, and to stimulate public participation. Such public participation can manifest in many forms, to report on a case and be a whistleblower, or to monitor ongoing case progress.

Transparency in case handling have become urgent both for the public as well as law enforcement offices. With transparency, these offices will have some relieve from public suspicions about handling of cases that need more time to process.***

WEEKLY SUMMARY

• Indonesian government system is still in disorder. The order of reformasi that was expected to replace the New Order's authoritarian military political system with democracy, to transform the centralistic government to local democracy, and to eliminate corruption, collusion and nepotism, is yet to be accomplished - antikorupsi.info/Zix

• Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) took to Police HQ to submit a request for public information on corruption cases at the Police ranks, either in Resort Police, Regional Police or at Criminal Investigation Unit (Bareskrim) at Police HQ. The request was based on a gap of corruption information between ICW's own monitoring results and the report claimed by Police HQ - antikorupsi.info/Zif

• Political party finances must be managed transparently and accountably in order to facilitate public access to information about income and expenditures of political parties - antikorupsi.info/ZiY

• ICW called on Kejagung to be more transparent in providing public information about case management at the prosecutor's corps. ICW consider the Attorney General Information System (SIMKARI) is not being implemented optimally -antikorupsi.info/ZiQ

• Lack of funding at political parties have become an excuse for corruption. State subsidies with strict terms and sanctions along with empowerment of constituents would prevent financial misappropriation in political parties - antikorupsi.info/Zid

STATUS UPDATES

September 28

• Evy Susanti, wife of North Sumatera Governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho, and Gary, former subordinate of lawyer OC Kaligis, testified in Kaligis' trial.

September 29

• Judges at Yogyakarta Corruption Court sentenced former area manager of State Electricity (PLN) of Yogyakarta to 13 months in prison

• Fuad Amin, former Regent of Bangkalan in East Java was charged with 15 years in prison and Rp 3 billion in fines, equal to additional 11 months prison time.

• Lead Commissioner of Jakarta Futures Exchange (BBJ) was sentenced to 2 years in prison and Rp 100 million in fines (or extra 3 months in prison) by judges at Jakarta Corruption Court in a bribery case for former Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Office (Bappebti) worth Rp 7 billion.

• KPK scheduled members of Commission II from Golkar Party at the House of Representatives (DPR) to testify in an alleged corruption at the Directorate General of Transmigration Area Development (P2KTrans).

September 30

• Two suspects were questioned by Attorney General Office (Kejagung) in an alleged corruption of ticket sales at Merpati Nusantara Airlines in 2009 – 2012 with state loss amounting to Rp 12.75 billion

October 1

• Judges at Denpasar Corruption Court sentenced the Regent of West Lombok to 4 years in prison in a case of extortion on licensing process for development of tourism areas in the regent.

• The Police handed over Lusi, a suspect in bribery on salt import for Partogi Pangaribuan, Director General of Foreign Trades at the Trade Ministry, to the Attorney General Office (Kejati) of Jakarta.

• The Police handed over case files, evidence and suspects in the alleged corruption of port dwelling time to Kejati Jakarta.

• The Police is due to hand over completed case files for suspects of the alleged corruption of UPS procurement projected in the revised local budget (APBD-P) of Jakarta in 2014.

October 2

• Evy Susanti, wife of North Sumatera Governor Gatot Pujo Nugroho, admitted to give a sum of money to secure trial results at Medan Administrative Court.