JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo's commitment to anti-corruption was questioned after he granted clemency to Annas Maamun, who was convicted of a bribery case for forest conversion in Riau. Responding to this, Jokowi said that he had only given clemency against corruptors once.
"If every day we issue clemency for corruptors, comment on it every day or every month. Please comment on it. This is (not continuing his statement)," Jokowi told reporters at the Bogor Presidential Palace Complex, West Java, Wednesday, November 27.
The former governor of DKI Jakarta then invited the public to check, how many had applied for clemency against him and how many requests he had granted.
"Check how many filed, how many hundred filed in one year, how many were granted? Checked right," he said.
Jokowi then explained, before giving clemency to Annas Maamun, he had received considerations from the Supreme Court and the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menkopolhukam) Mahfud MD. Not only that, the consideration of granting clemency also looks at Annas' health condition and age.
"Indeed, from a humanitarian perspective, his age is also old and sickly. So that from a humanitarian perspective it is given," he said.
Previously, President Jokowi granted clemency to the convicted person in a land conversion case who was also the former Governor of Riau, Annas Maamun. Annas was sentenced to seven years in prison for corruption in the forestry sector, namely the alleged bribery for the revision of forest function conversion in Riau.
For the granting of clemency, Annas, who was originally sentenced to seven years, has now his prison term cut for a year in accordance with Presidential Decree number 23 / G of 2019 concerning granting clemency.
The granting of clemency was then polemic. Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Kurnia Ramadhana then criticized Jokowi. He saw that Jokowi's commitment to anti-corruption was unclear. So that in the future this kind of attitude should begin to be tolerated by the public.
"This attitude of President Joko Widodo must be tolerated, because from the start the President did not have a clear anti-corruption commitment at all. So if the public has heard the anti-corruption narrative spoken by the president, that is just nonsense," said Kurnia through his written statement, Wednesday, November 27th.
The assessment of Jokowi's unclear commitment regarding this anti-corruption stance, said Kurnia, was not without evidence. He explained that in 2019, there were three decisions taken by the former mayor of Solo and they were against the spirit of anti-corruption. First, Jokowi approved the election of the KPK leadership with a bad track record.
Second, Jokowi actually approved the revision of the KPK Law which weakened the DPR and broke promises to issue a Government Regulation in lieu of the KPK Law or Perpu KPK.
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