The arrogance of power is something we did not expect to see in a democratic setting like today's Indonesia. Having gone through 32 years of authoritarian rule under president Soeharto until he was deposed in 1998, we have come to assume that the display of naked power in this country belonged to a bygone era.

We could not be more wrong. The arrest of two deputies from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah, on Thursday shows that the old habit is still with us, even with the freshly re-elected government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The arrests triggered widespread protests from the public, which had been following the row between the KPK and the police these past few months through the media. President Yudhoyono's press conference defending the police action and saying he would not meddle in an ongoing legal process only added fuel to the protests. Since the National Police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri is accountable and answerable to him and him alone, it is unacceptable for the President to declare that he did not have the power to intervene.

Both Bambang and Yudhoyono are essentially hiding behind legal and constitutional arguments in defending and condoning the arrest of the two KPK deputies. Since they are effectively "the law", they may win the legal arguments and eventually prevail, if and when the case is heard in a court of law.

But they are forgetting one thing: The case is already now being heard in the court of public opinion, and the public is overwhelmingly against the arrests.

The street protests, the offer by public figures to stand in for Bibit and Chandra in the police detention center, the growing petitions in their support on social networking media like Facebook and Twitter, and the wearing of black attire or black armbands on Monday, attest to the revulsion many people feel at the seemingly gross miscarriage of justice.

Soeharto always felt comfortable hiding behind the law and the Constitution, which de facto he controlled (he was "the law" for much of his reign), but misread that, while he had constitutional legitimacy and exercised it with naked power, he never had that much popular legitimacy.

Yudhoyono too may feel that he has constitutional legitimacy, but he is wrong to assume that he also still enjoys a popular legitimacy, having won the election with 60 percent plus of the votes in July.

Many who supported his re-election have now turned against him. This could not have been a worse start to Yudhoyono's second, and constitutionally final, term in office.

Gen. Bambang should be fired, if not for miscalculating public reaction then for his poor sense of timing. The day the arrests were made was the day the President launched his National Summit, bringing in all the nation's top decision makers to hear about the direction and the goals of his new government. Rather than acting as a diversion, news on the summit was buried by the media (thank God for the free media) choosing the arrest and the public reaction as the main story on the day and for the next few days.

The episode has damaged not only the image and reputation of the National Police, but increasingly that of President Yudhoyono. Why he is aloof in spite of the public sentiment is baffling. His attitude has strengthened speculation that the KPK may be hitting the jackpot in one of its corruption investigations – catching a much bigger fish than they thought at first – so much so that the National Police and the President are going to such lengths as to put their own credibility on the line.

There is only one proper course of action for President Yudhoyono to take in order to pacify the public, restore their sense of justice and prevent the protests from escalating into one massive people power movement: Release Bibit and Chandra at once.

Let their legal cases proceed by all means and let them battle it out with the police in the open. But do not put them in detention.