PVRI Demands President Remove KPK Chair Firli Bahuri

JAKARTA - The Public Virtue Research Institute (PVRI) continues to urge President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to remove the chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Firli Bahuri.

This was conveyed by PVRI Spokesperson Yansen Dinata in response to the statement of the Main Expert Staff of the Presidential Staff Office (KSP) Ali Mochtar Ngabalin who considered the pressure to disrupt President Jokowi's concentration in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our demands remain the same, the President must be responsible and in this case the President must remove Firli from the position of KPK Chair," Yansen said in a written statement to VOI quoted on Tuesday, August 10.

He said the petition titled #PecatFirli was the aftermath of efforts to weaken the KPK which had been going on, including in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it could not be allowed to continue.

Moreover, Yansen believes that President Jokowi has not prioritized handling the COVID-19 pandemic as well as eradicating corruption.

"Eradication of corruption and handling of the pandemic has never been the President's main priority, but the economy and investment. That is also the reason the KPK Law was revised despite great opposition from the public," he stressed.

Previously, Ali Mochtar Ngabalin asked that the petition raised by the democratic studies institute, the Public Virtue Research Institute (PVRI), should not interfere with President Jokowi, who is focusing on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ngabalin said the KPK's decisions, including those related to the National Insight Test Assessment (TWK) must be respected by all parties. The reason is that the KPK is an independent state institution and every decision has been taken with careful consideration.

"So there should be no parties to politicize our great state institution," said Ngabalin.

The petition raised by the PVRI emerged after the anti-corruption commission refused to take corrective action from the Indonesian Ombudsman due to the discovery of maladministration and abuse of authority in the TWK process for its employees as a condition for status transfer.

According to the agency, the refusal of the KPK to carry out corrective actions from the Indonesian Ombudsman proves that the KPK under Firli Bahuri's leadership is an anti-correction and can weaken corruption eradication activities if allowed to drag on.