[The following is an article based on a conference paper by sociologist George J. Aditjondro, a lecturer at Australia's Newcastle University. It was originally published in two parts with the second appearing on March 17.]

Newcastle – Recently, the move to push Megawati Soekarnoputri into the presidential seat has become stronger.

But is that the solution to the current stalemate between the executive and legislative branches of the Indonesian government? Or will it only be followed by another stalemate, centered around another corruption scandal, in six months time? Reports of the growing cancer of corruption within Megawati's inner circle, and also those of corrupt practices among top leaders of the House of Representatives (DPR) and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) clearly shows that simply replacing Abdurrahman Wahid by Megawati is surely not the solution.

The solution should rather be found in dissolving the current legislature – most of whose leaders come from political parties which violated the 1999 bans against excessive party donations and electoral graft – and have a new election, in which only those parties which did not violate those 1999 laws can take part.

The new elections would be supervised by a new General Elections Commission committed to enforce all bans against political corruption, especially excessive contributions and electoral graft. Only in that way can we have a multiparty system, without the multiparty corruption now thriving in our political system.

Allegations of corruption and favoritism has been raised against Megawati's husband, Taufik Kiemas. He has been the focus of media reports in news portal detik.com and tabloid Adil which portray the South Sumatran businessman as rescuing Marimutu Sinivasan, the boss of Texmaco, one of the biggest debtors to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), from criminal investigations after allegedly accepting a position as a commissioner of the conglomerate. Taufik has also attracted media attention for allegedly winning favorable deals in the US$2.3 billion Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR) project, the $2.4 billion double track railway project from Merak on the tip of West Java to Banyuwangi on the tip of East Java, the $23 billion Trans-Borneo highway, and the $1.7 billion Trans-Papua highway in West Papua (Panji Masyarakat, August 30, 2000).

The JORR project seems to be the most politically sensitive among these potential megaprojects, since it strongly depends on Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso. This retired general is sitting on hot potatoes given his alleged role in the 1996 attack on the headquarters of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party when he was in charge of the city's security as the Jakarta commander.

The government and the party's silence over investigations into the case, which led to days of rioting, raises questions over whether Sutiyoso might have offered Megawati's side a lucrative deal in the JORR project in return for being let off the hook, as reported by the above magazine.

The news bulletin, Xpos, mentions that Sutiyoso's bribe to Taufik amounted to Rp 15 billion, in addition to Rp 10 billion paid to Roy Janis, the head of the Jakarta branch of Megawati's party, PDI Perjuangan.

In its internet edition of May 22-28, 2000, Xpos showed proof of these alleged bribes and also exposed Sutiyoso's offer of another perk to win over Taufik's favor, namely a license to manage an offshore floating casino in Jakarta Bay.

As far as the JORR project is concerned, the Governor's attempt to be absolved from his alleged political crime in the July 27, 1996 disaster does not seem to be limited to Taufik.

The children of two ministers in the Cabinet are allegedly also involved in determining which company will be involved in the megaproject.

Further, two of Taufik's younger brothers, Santayana Kiemas and Nazaruddin Kiemas, have allegedly accepted appointments as commissioners of one of the Gajah Tunggal companies, to rescue Syamsul Nursalim, the conglomerate's boss, from similar criminal prosecution. Taufik allegedly put some good words to the President about Syamsul Nursalim, after the tycoon sponsored Megawati and Taufik's New Year holiday in Hong Kong, according to Adil (January 2001) and other reports.

Nazaruddin is also named in the same report as having lobbied on behalf of Djoko S. Tjandra, one of the main suspects in the Rp 546 billion Bank Bali scandal. After two hearings at the South Jakarta court, Tjandra was acquitted by the court.

This acquittal raised strong public protests in Jakarta, since this was one of the stumbling blocks for the legitimation of former president B.J. Habibie's presidency. Habibie's friends had allegedly used these funds to bribe a significant number of MPR members to elect Habibie as president in the October 1999 MPR session, as reported among others by Kompas in November 1999.

These reports show another feature of Taufik's business connections, namely the predominance of young people from his home town, Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra.

According to these news weeklies, Nursalim's link to Taufik is Dudy Makmun Murod, a legislator from Palembang. Dudy's father, a retired lieutenant general and former Army commander, also sits, incidentally, on Gajah Tunggal's board of commissioners.

Other members of this "Palembang mafia" reportedly include former student leaders and environmentalists, who have become business operators for Taufik, to the dismay of their fellow activists. This includes M. Yamin, a lawyer and former student activist in the campaign to defend victims of the huge Kedungombo dam in Central Java, and Zulkarnain M.S., an engineer and former director of the Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI).

Influence in the bureaucratic sphere seems to be divided between members of the two ruling families. While Gus Dur's brother Hasyim Wahid has attracted media attention due to his influence in IBRA, Taufik has been allegedly influencing the appointment of the Director General of Customs, Permana Agung.

The closeness of this financial officer with the Vice President's husband is alleged to cover up for Taufik's luxury car-importing business, Adil reported in January 2001. A luxurious car dealer which the author visited last January in Cipete, South Jakarta, is allegedly partly or wholly owned by Taufik, showed dozens of luxurious sedans and four-wheel drive vehicles, that cost half of what other well-established car dealers were demanding in Jakarta.

None of these allegations against the Vice President's husband, his brothers and friends have been legally proven, so far. However, it is widely talked about in business circles and politicians in Jakarta, and among members of Megawati's own party.

Hence, MPR Speaker Amien Rais recently called for "people around Megawati Soekarnoputri to cease their corrupt practices, to safeguard Megawati's position when she becomes President", koridor.com reported in February 2001.

However DPR and MPR speakers are not free from corruption themselves.

Amien has allegedly amassed huge political donations from members of his National Mandate Party (PAN). These were to finance his campaign trips to Sumatra prior to the 1999 general election, and later his trips to maintain his constituency in Sumatra after becoming MPR Speaker.

These donations amounted to billions of rupiah, since it included such luxuries as helicopter trips during the 1999 election campaign. These costs amounted to approximately Rp 1 billion for every three days of his campaign.

Reports say these donations are mainly from PAN members who work at Mitra private hospitals, which are in turn part of the Kalbe Farma pharmaceutical company.

It is unclear whether these "donations" are seen as personal donations to Amien, or official donations from Kalbe Farma to the MPR Speaker – hence a private donation to the state – or a donation from a private company to a political party, namely PAN.

If reports of the "donation" to the National Mandate Party (PAN) are true, this would be a violation of Law No. 2 of 1999 on political parties. The law limits annual individual contributions to Rp 15 million, and annual contributions from business entities and organizations to Rp 150 million rupiah. So, in which category do the donations from PAN cadres employed by Kalbe Farma fall?

According to the December 2000 edition of the tabloid, Bangkit, PAN received a Rp 100 million donation from Achmad Junaidi, director of the state's workers insurance company, PT Jamsostek. This donation was disguised as an investment of the state company in the private company, PT Bumi Resources.

Again, if this news is accurate, is the above donation an individual one from Junaidi, or a donation from the company he directs? And, since this is a state-owned company, is this donation – or investment – known and approved by the Ministry of Labor, the Minister for Supervision of State-owned Companies, and by all the legislature's factions? On a less dramatic level, the Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and Megawati Soekarnoputri's younger brother, Guruh Soekarnoputra, reportedly accepted sponsorship by the British American Tobacco company, to attend a music festival in Cannes, France, in January 2000.

From a liberal democratic perspective, every gift from a large company to a legislator could be seen as a bribe. The House of Representatives was then debating a new regulation of the Ministry of Finance on tobacco levies, as reported among others by Kontan in May 2000.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Akbar Tandjung also has several corruption cases on his plate. Officials in a large river-dredging project in East Kalimantan have accused the chairman of Soeharto's former ruling party, Golkar, of pocketing Rp 5 billion in public funds from the Rp 27.5 billion project, while he was state secretary during the interim presidency of B.J. Habibie.

These funds were allegedly used to fill Golkar's coffers, Forum Keadilan magazine reported in March 2000.

Corruption allegations have also been aired concerning other political parties and politicians, who are – or were – represented in Abdurrahman Wahid's and Megawati's coalition government. One of them is Minister of Forestry and Plantation, Nur Mahmudi Ismail [who was reportedly dismissed Thursday - Ed]. This former chairman of the Islamic Justice Party (Partai Keadilan) has been attacked by the January 2001 edition of Jakarta Muslim news weekly magazine, Panji Masyarakat, for handing out new timber concessions to his cronies.

Hence, Chatibul Umam, the deputy secretary general of Gus Dur's National Awakening Party (PKB), urged the President to sack this minister. He said Ismail had abused his position by handing out business favors to friends and cronies.

Chatibul was quoted in the Indonesian Observer in February 2001 as saying the minister was two-faced, "On the upper level Ismail approaches Gus Dur, while on the lower level he acts like a political opponent." His remark reflects how deeply corruption has become a political football between members of the ruling coalition.

Former minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra was accused by members of his own Moon and Crescent Star Party (PBB) of accepting a Rp 1 billion donation from then president Habibie, to finance a national meeting of the party in February 1999, and then another Rp 500 million more for the general election in July 1999.

Amid denials from Habibie's associates, Yusril was still reelected as PBB's president in a party congress in late April 2000. This has led to a split in the party's leadership, with 16 party leaders rejecting Yusril's chairmanship. They are also currently planning to sue him for breaking the 1999 laws on political parties and general elections.

Finally, in the wake of the election of governors for the newly established provinces, the candidacy of these governors has also led to close scrutiny of the candidates' potentially corrupt past.

Abdul Gafur, a former long-time minister in Soeharto's Cabinets and former executive of Golkar, who has campaigned for the governorship in his home province of North Maluku, has been accused of accepting a Rp 100 million donation from state mining company PT Aneka Tambang for community development projects in North Maluku's three subdistricts.

However, the funds allegedly never reached the people in these subdistricts, and have instead been used by Gafur to renovate his parents' grave in one of the subdistricts, Gamma magazine reported in January this year.

All these cases demonstrate the predominant feature of post-Soeharto corruption in Indonesia, which has shifted from the formerly predominant oligarchic and hierarchical single-party model of corruption towards a "multi-party" model, as reported earlier this year by Indonesian Corruption Watch.

In most cases recorded, the rationale to justify corruption is the raising of funds for political parties represented by the bureaucrats and politicians in question, while simultaneously skimming some of the funds for their own pockets.

This level corruption heralds the presidential race of 2004. That is, if the current President and Vice President are not already displaced from their positions of power before their terms end.

This indicates one of the main shortcomings in the transformation of Soeharto's oligarchy towards the current multi-party system, namely the lack of clarity in laws, regulations and mechanisms to enforce those laws and regulations which deal with donations to political parties and vote-buying.

The predominance of former cronies of Soeharto and Habibie in the House, including the dominant role of Golkar, reflects the failure of the Election Supervisory Committee to enforce the two laws which ban excessive political donations and vote-buying.

Based on those two laws, the four most prominent political leaders, who have not shown their capacity as statesmen – or stateswomen – should not be trusted to lead the country out of the political and economic crisis; since their respective political parties have violated these laws and should have been disqualified even from taking part in the 1999 elections.

In their 1999 report, "Money Politics: Regulation of Political Finance in Indonesia," the Washington-based International Foundation for Election Systems has documented political parties which have violated the prohibitions against excessive political donations.

Despite the above annual limit on individual donations of Rp 15 million, Golkar acknowledged receiving two anonymous personal donations of Rp 50 million each, and one for Rp 25 million. Despite the annual limit upon contributions from business entities and organizations of Rp 150 million, Golkar also reported receiving three contributions from corporations of approximately Rp 200 million.

In the first report to the General Elections Commission, PDI Perjuangan reported 304 unidentified donors, three donations from individuals that exceeded the legal limit, and a Rp 400 million loan from an individual.

PKB reported receiving two donations from individuals that exceeded the legal limit and four excessive contributions from business entities. PAN reported receiving one individual donation that exceeded the legal limit, the National Labor Party (Partai Buruh Nasional) reported receiving loans and contributions from five individuals above the legal limit.

Indeed most of the Rp 582.6 million reportedly received by the Justice and Unity Party, led by some retired officers, were also from unidentified donors.

A few of the more noteworthy items in the above review of the second audited reports include five excessive contributions from individuals to PDI Perjuangan, plus six more excessive donations among 282 unidentified donors, as well as donations to the United Development Party from 168 party executives amounting to nearly Rp 14 billion, ranging from Rp 20 million to Rp 1.25 billion.

The report for the second round of party audited reports, covering the official campaign period, notes that the auditor did not attach a list of donors to Golkar's report at the request of the party's executive board. From persuading citizens at the voting booths with financial rewards to providing financial rewards to MPR members to vote for their presidential candidate, Golkar again tops the list of law-breakers.

The role of A.A. Baramuli, then chair of the Supreme Advisory Council and main Golkar campaigner for Eastern Indonesia, is well documented.

So is the "Bank Bali" scandal, where Rp 546 billion was spent to bribe Golkar branch leaders and MPR members to legitimize B.J. Habibie's presidency, as described in reports.

Given the above, extensive violations of laws on political donations and bans on vote-buying, a more fundamental solution to the current stalemate between the executive and legislative branch is to dissolve the entire DPR and MPR, and hold a new election.