Political Parties and Officials’ Corruption

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has conducted countless sting operations and made numerous announcements on the suspect status of public officials believed to have committed corruption crimes.

Ironically, these suspects have covered almost all distinguished posts in this country, from ministers to lawmakers of the House of Representatives (DPR) and Regional Legislative Councils (DPRDs), and to governors, regents, and mayors.

In 2018 alone, the KPK recorded around 100 regional heads that were involved in corruption. This data does not include around 220 DPR and DPRD legislators who have become prison inmates, along with those convicted for corruption with their partners from the private sector and in other separate cases. The figure is even more surprising if it includes other state employees like civil servants and law enforcement officials, including police officers, prosecutors and judges – even Constitutional Court justices who are deemed to represent God in the worldly realm.

The interesting fact is that most corruption cases involve public offices held by members of political parties. What is wrong with our political parties? What needs addressing in the future so that corruption among public officials can be reduced?

Stealing the people’s money

KPK Chairman Agus Rahardjo once joked that if the KPK actually had hands – incorporating its task forces and relatively large body of investigators – it could run a sting operation (OTT) nearly every day. Agus could be right. Why not, for the head of the region, for example, the motive for committing corruption is already prepared since becoming a candidate pair (paslon) in the regional election.

The KPK Research and Development’s 2016 and 2017 surveys show the high election costs borne by regional head candidates. On average, a regent/mayor candidate spends Rp 20 billion to Rp 30 billion and governors spend Rp 20 billion to Rp 100 billion. In reality, the 613 regional head candidates surveyed had an average wealth of Rp 6.7 billion. Four candidates even had total assets of Rp 0 (zero rupiah) and two others had negative assets.

It is thus unsurprising that, according to the KPK survey, 82.6 percent of regional candidate pairs rely on donors or sponsors to fund their candidacy. These sponsors and donors could be businessmen, organizations, institutions or individuals, whether based in Jakarta or locally, who expect to be rewarded with projects, business security, access to policymaking, appointments to regionally owned companies (BUMDs), preferential treatment in obtaining social assistance and fast-track licensure.

The large regional election costs, which are generally footed by donors or sponsors, tempt the elected regional heads to commit corruption. A causal relationship, therefore, exists in the money politics that takes place before a regional election – including the “political dowry” that candidate pairs pay to obtain

recommendations from political party leaders – and the corruption and bribery regional heads commit after an election.

The larger the electoral costs the sponsors fund on behalf of the candidate pairs, the greater the potential for the elected regional heads to commit corruption. Ironically, almost no other way is available to them to repay the capital provided by their sponsors and donors except to steal public money from the regional budget (APBD). The other illicit way is rent-seeking, trading their official capacity to gain “fees” from businesspeople that seek convenience in their business dealings. In essence, this is the same thing as collecting “rent” from entrepreneurs in the name of the people.

Big takings from regional elections

There are a number of factors that tempt corruption among directly elected regional heads, including the direct regional election system that offers opportunities for money politics. However, the regional election system is not the only factor influencing money politics and corruption. No less important is the absence of ethical standards among candidate pairs and their political parties backers in a regional election.

The direct election for regional heads, as adopted in Law No. 10/2016 on Regional Elections, involves practices that apparently help cultivate money politics and tempt elected regional heads to commit corruption. These include the centralized and oligarchic nomination process that does not obligate political parties to hold preliminary elections prior to selecting the candidate pairs, and the too high electoral threshold for the candidate pairs of political parties/party coalitions, as well as for the individual candidates.

This nomination process, which gives great power to party executives, not only gives birth to centralistic and oligarchic processes, but also to the high costs of the regional elections. All regional candidate pairs with political party backing must obtain a letter of recommendation from the party’s central board executive that bears the signatures of the party’s general chairman and secretary-general. As a result, the regional officials and local party chapters become dependent on the party’s central board. This offers opportunities for buying and selling recommendation letters at prices that are highly dependent on whether the electoral region is "wet" (wealthy) or not. The candidates’ sponsors and donors must purchase recommendation letters in advance of the regional election.

Money politics and corruption are also facilitated by the obligation for a political party or a coalition of parties to gain at least 25 percent of all votes in a DPRD election or 20 percent of seats in the respective DPRD. The problem is that most political parties cannot meet the threshold as the backer of a candidate pair without joining forces or forming a coalition with other political parties. Those political parties that become the core of the candidate’s coalition face a greater problem, because the support of small and medium political parties does not come for free, and must pay in advance for their support. The sponsors or donors must pay the “support fee” if the candidate is unable to. This practice is known as the pre-election "harvest season" for political parties.

Systemic issues

On the other side, similar problems exist in the direct electoral system that produces corrupt DPR and DPRD members. The direct legislative election, like the direct regional election, does not oblige political parties to hold a pre-nomination or preliminary election that allows the party’s best cadres to take part

in the legislative and regional elections. The legal framework for direct legislative and regional elections does provide equal opportunities for the party’s best cadres to become legislative candidates. As with the candidates of a direct regional election, the candidates of a direct legislative election are typically celebrities or those possessing enough individual capital to buy votes – a practice that has grown increasingly prevalent since the enactment of the majoritarian, open-list proportional system.

Almost no standards are applied to the competency and track records of legislative or regional head candidates. While many parties have questioned the too high passing grade for civil service applicants, almost none have questioned the unclear standards of the selection of legislative candidates and candidate pairs. Ironically, political parties have made no serious efforts to fix the recruitment system for public servants at either the regional or national levels. As long as an individual is popular, has a lot of money or a sponsor, and has close personal ties with the party elite, anyone can be nominated as a legislative or regional head candidate.

In reality, an individual should have attained financial independence before becoming a public official that carries an electoral mandate. This means that the public office of being a legislator or regional executive is not a profession for making a living or personal enrichment. To the contrary, legislators and state administrators at all levels must be individuals who have made an extraordinary commitment to developing society and environment in a sustainable manner and to pursuing justice, prosperity and the public good.

The legislative and regional head candidacies should be restricted to those who have "heard the call" to serve the public and dedicate their lives for the common good. A transparent and accountable public test can be institutionalized to determine who is truly qualified to "meet the call" as responsible state administrators and to determine those "losers" who would take advantage of an electoral contest as merely a platform for rent-seeking.

Jumping the fence

Therefore, resolving money politics and corruption among regional heads and regional legislators is not enough to fix the electoral system. The corruption committed by party-affiliated public officials is rooted in the absence of ethical standards for political parties and party-affiliated politicians. No adequate ethical standard exists for candidates of either legislative institutes or state offices. Some political parties have ethical standards and are starting to enforce them more consistently, but many parties still have not institutionalized such standards. As a recent example, the National Mandate Party (PAN) has retained Taufik Kurniawan as DPR deputy speaker, even though the KPK has named him a corruption suspect.

The absence of standards and standardized systems is also evident in the membership recruitment of political parties. Even though nearly all political parties have internal guidelines for nominating their members to public office, no open and independent verification process exists to determine the party candidates’ fulfillment of the established requirements for competence, capability, and integrity. Moreover, because political parties do not recruit members through grooming, they are ultimately unable to control the behavior of their affiliated public officials. This messy recruitment process, in turn, opens broad opportunities for politicians to "jump over the fence" at any time or switch parties in the name of the dynamics of democracy.

The situation is only worsened by the dominant trend of power lust among politicians and their lack of ideological commitments as public officials in the legislative and executive spheres as well as all other state agencies. The absence of ethical standards for integrity is also evident in the non-democratic approach to party governance, as illustrated by the Democratic Party, Gerindra, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Nasdem and Hanura. Almost all strategic decisions of a party lay in the hands of the general chairperson, who is typically a strong political figure and may even the party founder. As a result, party cadres have almost no room to differ from party leaders in their views and political choices. The party elite then uses this reality to conduct trade with legislative candidates and regional head candidates in their party leaders’ "blessings" and recommendations.

Government initiatives needed

It may be impossible to wait for change initiatives from politicians and party elites. This bad situation is a "comfort zone" for the parties currently in power. For some politicians, the KPK sting operations that have led to their colleagues’ arrests and suspect status is a mere matter of fate, which doesn’t take sides. The potential for money politics and corruption thus appears to be inherent in the prevailing electoral system, the direct regional elections, and party structure. In other words, the various elements of the political system that function ahead of the general and regional elections work to facilitate corruption rather than the opposite, to serve as the driving force for establishing a clean government.

Therefore, a change initiative is needed from the central government to make serious efforts in legal reform regarding the General Elections Law, Regional Elections Law and Political Party Law to create a legal framework for anticipatory measures against the potential for money politics and corruption. With great commitment from the government, supported by experts and civil society elements, I believe that the realization of such an anti-corruption legal framework is highly likely. This nation must continue to bear huge political costs if the electoral system, direct regional elections and the organizational structure of political parties facilitate only the birth of corrupt public officials that ultimately undermine the achievements of our democracy. (Syamsuddin Haris, Research Professor, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI))