Political Corruption

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

General Elections Commission (KPU) commissioner Wahyu Setiawan, wearing a detention vest, sits in a car ready to transport him to detention on 23 Jan. 2020 at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Wahyu was questioned as a suspect in a bribery case surrounding the replacement of a lawmaker from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The pace of democratic development and bureaucratic reform in Indonesia has suffered from two blows at once: declines in both the Democracy Index and the Corruption Perception Index. In the Democracy Index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Indonesia\'s score in 2020 was only 6.30 on a scale of zero to 10, the country\'s lowest score in 14 years. Meanwhile, Indonesia\'s Corruption Perception Index dropped three points from 40 in 2019 to 37 in 2020.

There are many factors that have given birth to this phenomenon. One thing that should be emphasized is that the decline in Indonesia\'s performance in the two indexes is actually related. The backward movements in both democracy and the eradication of corruption reflect the growing grip of "political corruption" in this country.

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What is meant by "political corruption" is the abuse of the mandate of power by political leaders for personal gain with the aim of increasing power and wealth by way of trading in influence or benefiting certain parties. This has the effect of poisoning politics and endangering democracy.

A number of observers attributed the decline in Indonesia\'s Corruption Perception Index to changes in laws and regulations that tended to weaken the authority of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). However, in the last analysis, political support for this is also a manifestation of the strengthening of political corruption which weakens the functions of the rule of law and democratic accountability.

Kompas/Heru Sri Kumoro

Former Secretary of the Supreme Court, Nurhadi (vest) left the Corruption Eradication Commission Building, Jakarta, Tuesday (2/6/2020). Nurhadi and Rezky are suspects of bribery or gratification cases related to handling cases in the Supreme Court with a value of around Rp 46 billion. They were arrested after almost four months before they were wanted.

According to Vineeta Yadav, in Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries (2011), political lobbying occurs in any democratic country. The difference is that there are individual lobbying practices that do not directly affect democratic institutions and there are also lobbying practices that are directly related to the political (party) institutional “controllers”, which weaken the processes of argumentation, deliberation and accountability in democracy.

This differs from the general perception that political corruption is a consequence of the weakness of political parties; Yadav proposes the opposite conclusion. Based on a comparative study of 64 newly developing democracies, he found that political corruption tended to increase in countries with a very dominant role for political parties.

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When political parties are the sole agent, without a meaningful balance, in making legislative regulations regarding agenda-setting, changing regulations, election costs and the selection of officials in a country, they will be strengthened, both in policy making and political choices. If the party organizations are managed like individual companies controlled by oligarchic interests, political lobbying can weaken the autonomy of people\'s representatives, which in turn can weaken the performance of democracy and boost political corruption.

In fact, as reminded by the founders of the state, the House is not a parliament (the most comprehensive representative body), but an ordinary legislative body.

In the development of Indonesian democracy, after the People\'s Consultative Assembly was stripped of its position as the highest state institution, the vehicle for the incarnation of all people (through political parties), all groups and all regions, the position and behavior of the House of Representatives became too dominant as if the institution itself were a parliament. In fact, as reminded by the founders of the state, the House is not a parliament (the most comprehensive representative body), but an ordinary legislative body.

With the domination of the House as a catalyst for individual rights through political parties, the function and authority of the Regional Representative Council as an articulator of territorial (regional) rights have been weakened. Meanwhile, group delegates, who could act as balancing forces in fighting for communitarian rights, no longer have a place in the representative institution.

Without the power of checks and balances in the representative institution, the domination of the House serves as an entry point for the domination of political parties in policies, choices and state leadership. The domination of political parties without internal democratization within the political parties paves the way for political oligarchs that breed political corruption. Political corruption can eventually decompose democratic institutions.

KOMPAS/PRAYOGI DWI SULISTYO

The Corruption Eradication Commission led by KPK Deputy Chairman Nawawi Pomolango (center) held a press conference on the activities of the arrest of the East Kutai Regent, East Kalimantan, Ismunandar at the KPK Building, Jakarta, Friday (3/7/2020).

In this regard, the study of Rose Ackerman (1999) shows that countries with high levels of corruption have low levels of trust in public institutions, which in turn has a negative impact in the form of fading commitment on the part of the citizens to collective projects and to civic values, which spurs criminality and social disorganization.

In line with that, a study by Della Porta (2000) identifies that corruption is a cause and consequence of poor government performance. Corruption leads to bad government performance and poor government performance causes citizens to develop bribery practices to make things easier or to influence decision making, which in turn fosters further corruption. In the end, a high level of corruption results in a low level of trust in democracy.

KOMPAS/RADITYA HELABUMI

Yudi Latif

In short, efforts to eradicate corruption at its roots require the structuring of the democratic and nomocratic (rule of law) institutions by reforming political parties and rearranging people\'s representative institutions to provide a framework of checks and balances among various forms of popular representation in the legislature.

YUDI LATIF, National Alliance Expert

(This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo).