KPK: High Political Costs Become A Trigger For The Occurrence Of Corruption

Photo: Doc. Antara

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Nurul Ghufron said the high cost in the political process was one of the triggers for corruption.

"Unfortunately, democracy in Indonesia, which is still very high, has resulted in a political process that should be conscience and then become a business transaction," said Ghufron in the webinar "Refuse Corruption, Assistance for Political Parties to Become Solutions", quoted from Antara, Saturday, September 17.

He gave an example of candidates who want to run in regional head elections (pilkada) need a lot of capital.

"The capital version of the Ministry of Home Affairs is for districts/cities with outskirts of Rp. 30 billion to Rp. 50 billion. Above that, the medium is Rp. 50 (billion) to Rp. 100 (billion), for metro ones, of course it is already above Rp. 150 (billion)," said Ghufron.

With this high cost, continued Ghufron, it was the trigger for regional heads to commit corruption in order to return capital from financing during the nomination.

"That's the capital, while the salary of regional heads is we know that the salary is still relatively disproportionate with the burden. As a result, once again this results in inevitably the process of returning the capital in a corrupt way," he said.

He revealed that based on KPK data, hundreds of political party cadres (political parties) were arrested by the KPK, even though the KPK did not really want the arrests to continue.

"When it was corrupt, then 'cats' and the KPK, gave birth to 300 political party cadres who sat in the legislature, who sat on the regional head about 144. The KPK didn't really want to continue all this but this would not be finished by only at the level of prosecution were arrested and arrested," he said.

Therefore, the KPK also hopes to create a political system with more integrity.

"So let's build a political system in the future that has more integrity. It was all originally from the policy of forming a political party law, both regarding the use of the budget, the assistance even to what kind of political system. Is it open, proportional, or whatever. Those are all political systems, there must be consequences," said Ghufron.

"This is what we both create so that the political system in the future will not only give birth to winners but the political process does not then divide the political party cadres. It must be high and then after winning, 'cat-catcing' with the KPK. This is all a process that can actually be determined by the political party itself," he added.