Zainal Arifin Mochtar

Illegal Elections Funds

VIVAnews – Currently, nearly all legislative and presidential candidates have already spent a significant amount of their money on election campaigns. The question is how would the government control the flow of illegal election funds?

So far, our elections agencies seem absolutely unprepared for the upcoming elections. Take for example the Elections Monitoring Agency (Bawaslu).  This agency still needs to consolidate itself, especially at the provincial and city levels. Passive campaigning are already taking place this very minute.

The first safety precaution to prevent corruption in the upcoming elections, should be in monitoring the election process. In order to appropriately enforce the election law, we need a strong monitoring agency, i.e. Bawaslu.

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The problem is how we can enforce such laws when such agency has yet to establish itself at the provincial and city levels, because election campaigns will also be held at these levels.    

 

It’s almost certain that illegal election funds will remain a central issue in the upcoming elections as they were in the previous elections. In fact, they will actually increase. Why? This is attributed to the Constitutional Court’s decision to use the majority vote as the basis for the selection of legislative candidates. This will force the candidates to do whatever they can to promote themselves, even through money politics. 

If in the past, it was the political party who has actively engaged in money politics—through the “auction” of top positions in the numerical order system—today, it is the individual candidates who are actively involved in it. I am not saying that the above decision is wrong, but we still need to tighten the monitoring mechanism of these individual areas, i.e. the legislative and the presidential candidates.

Under the new system, a candidate who is number 50 on the electoral list, if any, still has a good chance of becoming a parliament member if he/she wins a lot of votes. However, it will be extremely difficult to monitor the money politics of these individuals. 

Consequently, in the upcoming elections, the challenge in election monitoring, as the first safety precaution, will be much harder. The problem is what can we expect from the election monitoring staff at the district level whose salaries are only Rp 300,000 to Rp 400,000 (US$27 to US$36)? For instance, what would one do if a certain candidate told him or her to throw away other candidates’ votes, “Throw these papers into the river, and I will give you Rp 10 million”? 

I think it is quite hard to resist the temptation. And exactly herein lays our biggest problem. If we increase their salary, then the state budget (APBN) would suffer.   

Therefore, to anticipate such illegal funds, we need a coordinated action among all government institutions involved in the elections. Take for example the PPATK (Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center). This agency has the legal authority to monitor financial transactions. The problem is PPATK must obtain the Central Bank’s approval. Consequently, the coordination between the two institutions, i.e. Bawaslu and PPATK along with other law enforcement agencies, is highly important in investigating suspicious illegal funds. 

The problem is until recently, with Election Day being less than three months away; there is still a lack of coordinated commitments. In fact, until today, most of the PPATK’s reports are not followed up by the law enforcement agency. Perhaps this is attributable to the fact that most of the transactions data are incomplete. 

If we want to take this matter more seriously, all government institutions must sit together. Designing, analyzing, and talking about what can be done to cover this gap?

Such institutions include Indonesia’s central bank (BI), PPATK, Finance Department, the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the state attorneys, and the police.



Another issue is that would-be corruptors are not limited to those out there in the field. It is equally important for us to monitor the election committee, i.e. the General Elections Commission (KPU).

The KPK and the BPK should be more watchful in monitoring the KPU. Don’t let anyone say that our country never learns lessons from its own past.

During the 1999 elections, we have Clara Sitompul who faced procurement corruption charges. In the 2004 election, the number of corruption cases increased. We have Mulyana W. Kusumah, Nazaruddin Syamsuddin, Daan Dimara, and many others.

How about the 2009 elections? Our hope is of course: let there be no more of such things!


* Based on an interview with Zainal Arifin Mochtar, Director of Anti-Corruption Research Center (Pukat), Faculty of Law, Gadjah Mada University.

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Translated by: Edwin Solahuddin

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VIVA.co.id
28 Maret 2024