ANALYSIS: Indonesians fret as president waffles over graft scandal

By Ahmad Pathoni Nov 20, 2009, 7:35 GMT

   Jakarta - Public disillusionment is growing with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono over his perceived indecisiveness in handling an alleged graft scandal that has implicated senior officials.

   Questions have been asked about Yudhoyono's determination to fight corruption after wiretapped recordings revealed an apparent plot to undermine the country's powerful anti-graft agency involving senior police and prosecutors, allegedly with the president's blessing.

   Yudhoyono, who began his second term in office in October after a landslide election victory in July, has set up an investigative panel comprising his advisers to get to the bottom of the alleged conspiracy.

   The panel this week recommended that the president punish those implicated and demand police drop corruption charges against two deputy chairmen of the Corruption Eradication Commission, saying evidence against them was flimsy.

   But Yudhoyono said he needed a week to make a decision, prompting criticism from members of the public who have grown impatient with entrenched corruption in the legal system.

   'It is evident in the media, on the internet and among the middle class who voted for him that there's increasing dissatisfaction with the way he handles this issue,' said Burhanuddin Muhtadi, a researcher with the Indonesian Survey Institute, a private pollster.

   Muhtadi said that even before the scandal broke his agency's surveys indicated that Yudhoyono's public approval rating was dipping on the issue of law enforcement, from 61 per cent in May to 54 per cent in September.

   'This issue has the potential to erode his legitimacy,' Muhtadi said. 'It is sapping the energy of the new cabinet, making it difficult to execute programmes for the first 100 days.'

   Indonesians are clamouring on the internet and in the media for Yudhoyono to sack National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri and Attorney General Hendarman Supandji, whom they perceive as being complicit in the conspiracy.

   A Facebook page in support of the anti-corruption commission has attracted more than 1.3 million people.

   The national police chief of investigations and a deputy attorney general, whose names were mentioned in the recordings, resigned after the tapes were played in a televised court hearing earlier this month, but officials said they were likely to be reinstated.

   In the recordings, a senior prosecutor, police investigators and the brother of a businessman who was the subject of a corruption probe by the anti-graft commission appeared to be discussing scenarios to frame the two deputy chairmen of the commission.

   One of the speakers talked about Yudhoyono's consent to the move.

   Some anti-graft activists have linked the alleged conspiracy to election funding for Yudhoyono's Democratic Party and the government's much-criticized decision to bail out a failing small bank, in which politically connected figures allegedly stashed their fortunes.

   Yudhoyono has denied any involvement and vowed to eradicate what he called 'the legal mafia.'

   Sunny Tanuwidjaja, a political analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it appeared that Yudhoyono did not want to be seen as interfering in the legal process.

   'It's a dilemma for him,' Tanuwidjaja said. 'But the public has legitimate concerns about the whole process because they have little faith in the justice system.'

   The national media have joined the chorus for the president to take action.

   'Yudhoyono has some difficult decisions to make,' wrote the Jakarta Globe newspaper in its editorial on Friday. 'He must act decisively not only to save his presidency, but more importantly, to maintain stability.

   The anti-corruption commission, set up in 2003 to fight corruption in one of the world's most graft-prone nations with the power to arrest and prosecute, has been widely praised by the public for a series of successful prosecutions of high-profile offenders.

   Legislators, governors, former ministers, businessmen, one prosecutor and top central bank officials, including an in-law of Yudhoyono, have been jailed by a special corruption court.

   The commission's trouble began in May when its chairman, Antasari Azhar, was arrested for allegedly orchestrating a murder.

   Azhar, who claims the charges against him were trumped up, is now on trial and could face the death penalty if convicted.

   In another twist, a senior policeman on trial for his alleged involvement in the murder testified this month that he was coerced by his superiors to implicate Azhar in the killing. Police have denied the accusations.