Mahfud MD Said, Criminalization Allegations Appear When The Object Is A Political Party Person Who Is Looking For The Reason For The Government's Corner

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD (DOK ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD ensured that there was no criminalization related to corruption cases involving politicians in Indonesia. So far, everything can be proven in court. "There is nothing that is not proven in court. There is always evidence and there are always items confiscated and returned to the state, meaning it is not criminalization," said Mahfud MD when delivering a public lecture at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Sleman, Yogyakarta, Antara, Friday, October 6. Mahfud assessed that the emergence of the notion of criminalization was when the object or subject was a political party person just to defend himself or look for excuses to corner the government. "There is always (the response) of politicians that there is criminalization and so on, yes, that means sometimes crime is true," he said. He did not deny that what he meant was legal politicization which was a form of being picky about cases for handling. "That's a moral problem. It could be, for example, the chairman of the court (said) this first. To be able to go up to a case or not, it could be corruption there. That's what is called politicization," he said. Mahfud said the government through the Attorney General's Office and the Indonesian Police had taken a stance to temporarily stop the handling of corruption cases involving politicians until the election period was over. Because, based on experience in various regions ahead of the election, there are people who are not wrong, they are reported and their candidacy is canceled. "Regarding the minister having politics, candidates for members of the DPR, DPRD, all candidates for regional elections if they are involved in corruption cases are terminated first, postponed first, not closed but postponed until the election is over," he said. However, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is adamant about continuing the handling of corruption cases without being affected by the election period. "KPK said, we will continue, the law will not stop because there are elections," he said. According to Mahfud, regarding the KPK principle, the government cannot interfere because it has the potential to violate the procedural law so that it can only give appeals even though there is coordination.

"KPK is in the executive family but not members of the cabinet, such as the KPU, Komnas HAM, LPSK, Bawaslu so we cannot interfere. Later, the event will be legally wrong if we go inside," he said.