it has been his failure to
manage the complex and nuanced politics of the police that has not only brought
about the downfall of Indonesia’s highest crime-fighter but exposed Jokowi’s
personal and political weaknesses.
When rumours spread around
Jakarta that Jokowi was intent
on replacing the National Police Chief,
General Sutarman, there
was understandably some surprise. After
all, Sutarman was a reasonably competent cop, nominated by the last
administration and still with a solid six months to his term. But a new
administration often requires new leadership and so speculation turned to a
handful of names of similarly passable officers who might replace him. In
principle, the president, in consultation with the National Police Commission,
is free to nominate multiple candidates whose names
are then put forward to the House
of Representatives to
assess. On 9 January 2015, Jokowi followed his predecessor’s practice by
nominating a single candidate: Budi Gunawan.
That Gunawan would be one of
the names in circulation was also no great surprise given his closeness
with Megawati Sukarnoputri, Jokowi’s political patron and the head of his
party, the PDI-P. Gunawan served as adjutant during Megawati’s presidency and
vice presidency. Within police circles, Gunawan is known as a major broker,
able to insert himself in the most powerful and lucrative networks. As
assistant to the Deputy for Human Resources under former police chief General
Sutanto, Gunawan’s personal wealth had inexplicably ballooned.
Later stints as chief of
police in Jambi province and then at police headquarters as head of internal
affairs further amplified his authority. Although Gunawan had been cast out
under Sutarman to the political wilderness of police education, this did not
limit his financial prowess. His 2013 personal wealth statement was 21.5
billion rupiah (about US$1.7 million). Such was the extent of Gunawan’s wealth,
and the speed with which he accumulated it, that Gunawan was repeatedly
rumoured to have one of the ‘fat police bank accounts’ monitored by the Center for
Indonesian Financial Reports and Analysis.
Indonesian civil society and
intelligentsia reacted to the nomination with shock and outcry. But in the days
that followed, Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) took matters one
step further. The KPK had reportedly red-flagged Gunawan in their review of
potential ministers for Jokowi’s new cabinet. Just four days after Jokowi’s
nomination of Gunawan, KPK head Abraham Samad and deputy Bambang Widjojanto
declared the would-be police chief a corruption suspect.
The KPK has long believed
itself to be the moral guardian of Indonesian democracy. A number of public
statements from Samad in the first months of Jokowi’s term implied that not
only was the KPK’s authority above and beyond
that of the president but that his very electoral success
had been aided, at least in part, by KPK’s tacit endorsement of him as a
clean candidate. Throughout Jokowi’s campaign and early presidency, the
commission had made its political preference for his presidency clear, even
taking out rival Prabowo’s coalition mate Suryadarma Ali mid-campaign on
corruption charges.
Yet even in this highly politicised
environment, the KPK’s retrospective announcement of corruption charges on a
presidentially endorsed appointee was at best courageous and, at worse,
downright provocative.
In the fracas that followed,
the Gunawan nomination was stalled, and at considerable cost for all involved.
General Sutarman was swiftly
retired and his Chief of Criminal
investigations ousted, replaced by Budi Waseso, a key Gunawan ally. Badrodin
Haiti, an unremarkable deputy police chief who himself has been accused of
having a ‘fat bank account’, ascended to take on the top job.
But even Haiti wasn’t
informed when, ten days after the KPK’s naming of Gunawan as a corruption
suspect, criminal investigators under Waseso arrested the KPK’s Bambang
Widjojanto. In the subsequent weeks Waseso has been relentless, resurrecting
numerous cold cases against Samad and two other KPK deputies, effectively
wiping out the KPK’s leadership and threatening its remaining investigators
with criminal charges.
Most recently charges against
two KPK deputies have been dropped, but Samad and Wijojanto remain under active
investigation. Samad was detained briefly in late April while Wijojanto’s case
file is currently being bounced back and forth between Polri and the attorney
general’s office. An important KPK investigator, Novel Baswedan, who was in
charge of a bribery case implicating a PDI-P legislator, has been arrested.
Meanwhile Waseso’s office has wrested control of the Gunawan corruption case
after a Jakarta court ruling, a first in the history of the KPK.
Given their fractious
history, it is hardly surprising that the police would respond so aggressively.
In 2009, the KPK clashed with the police over the arrest of a police general,
which saw two KPK commissioners arrested on fabricated charges, while in 2012 a
spat over the procurement of traffic simulators saw the police attempt to raid
KPK offices ostensibly to arrest an investigator on trumped-up charges.
But in the years since their
last public battle, the two institutions have increasingly come to an
uneasy acknowledgement of their interdependence. In large part this is
because the KPK has finally accepted that if Indonesia is ever to be free of
corruption, then the KPK will have to give up its monopoly stake in the war
against it.
There is a strong legal
basis for further narrowing and refining of KPK’s role. Although the KPK has
made its name by investigating and prosecuting corruption, the legislation
states clearly that the KPK’s principal job is to coordinate and supervise the
corruption investigations of other law enforcement institutions, particularly
the police. The KPK’s belated understanding of the shared nature of the fight
against corruption has been, for the police, a major source of frustration and
has fuelled accusations that the institution is an arrogant super-body.
The current dispute is not
all about functional overlap. The KPK enjoys public support that is
unprecedented for an Indonesian state institution. Meanwhile, the only poll
that the police seem to top is Transparency International Indonesia’s ‘most
corrupt’ perception index. And yet KPK investigators are nothing more than
police officers on secondment. It’s in the well-resourced, respected halls of
the KPK that police officers reach new heights of investigative skill and
professionalism.
Former National Police Chief
General Sutarman and Chief of Criminal Investigations Suhardi Alius understood
that if the police were going to improve their public image, then the force
would have to lift its game in corruption investigations. The way to do that
was to attract this cohort of well-trained investigative officers back to the
ranks of the police. By revamping and refunding their Special Unit for
Corruption Crimes and stocking it to the brim with
newly returned KPK investigators,
the previous leadership
indicated that they were both serious about an anti-corruption drive and that
people-to-people relations would spearhead the relationship.
The Gunawan affair has
revealed just how quickly institutional lines can be drawn. Waseso’s dark
comments about cleansing the police force of ‘traitors’ suggest that the time
of rapprochement, and by extension, any hope of a coherent and consolidated
anti-corruption drive, is for now well and truly over.
But the current push against
the KPK is not just fuelled by a history of institutional rivalry. The depth
and success of this attack on the KPK suggests that the police are supported by
the highest echelons of the political establishment.
The KPK has unsurprisingly
few friends in parliament and the past few years have seen a number of failed
legislative attempts to weaken the agency’s authority. But this time, the
political attacks on the KPK by Indonesia’s fractured parliament have coalesced
behind the driving force of Megawati Sukarnoputri, head of the PDI-P and
Jokowi’s political patron. Last year, the KPK reopened an investigation into
the terms under which then president Megawati, by presidential instruction,
released a number of companies from the obligation to repay their money
from a Bank of Indonesia bailout. In the months before his arrest, KPK head
Samad was forthright in his promise to bring Megawati before
the commission. That case has now been dropped.
Megawati has scarcely
appeared in public since the Gunawan nomination, but her ruthlessness and
obstinacy in the face of public fury speaks volumes about the dynamics of her
relationship with Jokowi. During the storm over the Gunawan nomination,
Megawati sat regally silent while party hacks like Effendi Simbolan mused openly on the possibility
of a presidential impeachment with a spite to rival anything that
has so far come from the KMP opposition.
PDI-P has revealed itself to
be an insular, often myopic party, even when this threatens the credibility of
its very own government and with little affection for the man who put them
there.
Megawati has been
unflinching in her support for Gunawan, even in the face of public outrage. Budi Gunawan’s recent
appointment as deputy national police chief, in a hastily organised
closed ceremony, illustrates just how
little space the president
has with his political partners for compromise.
While PDI-P has exposed its
true colours, the real damage
has been done to Jokowi
himself. Jokowi’s performance has been one of blundering, foot-dragging and a
desperate lack of political smarts. From the beginning, Jokowi appeared
unprepared for the indignation that the Budi Gunawan nomination would ignite,
highlighting not only his patchy grasp of portfolios that don’t immediately
interest him but also his inability to use his inner circle for strategic
advice.
These weaknesses we glimpsed
during his poorly organised, often flatfooted, presidential campaign.
But the politics of the police have stripped Jokowi of his reformist image,
revealing a man who not only appears lacking in political acumen and leadership
skills but is also hemmed in by the very forces that are supposed to be on his
side. If in just six months of the Jokowi government the KPK — Indonesia’s most
celebrated state institution — can be brought to its knees, then one wonders
what’s in store for the long four-and-half years ahead.
Jacqui Baker is a Lecturer in Southeast
Asian Studies at Murdoch University and a Fellow at the Asia Research Centre.
This article appeared in the
most recent edition of the East Asia Forum Quarterly, ‘Asia’s Minorities‘.
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