Peter Alford, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has issued a flurry of directives dealing with Indonesia's most troublesome corruption cases, as he tries to take charge of an issue seriously eroding his administration's effectiveness.
This week he made 12 directives on the Gayus Tambunan tax scandal, and five more seeking to extinguish the smouldering political risk of the Bank Century bailout.
However, having campaigned on counter-corruption policies in two presidential elections only to deflate many hopes he had raised, Dr Yudhoyono is now battling headwinds of public cynicism.
"This is the President's response to the voices who want his impeachment (over Bank Century and Gayus), which is peaking now, with religious leaders also starting to speak out," University of Indonesia political analyst Arbi Sanit said.
By October only 34 per cent of Indonesians trusted the administration's efforts against public corruption, compared with 83.7 per cent a year previously, according to the Indonesian Survey Institute.
The scale of Dr Yudhoyono's task was clear this week when the administration suspended Bengkulu governor Agusrin Najamuddin, the 17th of Indonesia's 33 provincial chiefs under graft investigation.
Dr Yudhoyono is now paying the price for refusing to intervene decisively on behalf of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the one untarnished grime-fighting institution, when the national police were mishandling the Gayus case.
Last year, he failed to adequately protect his best counter-corruption ministers, then finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Vice-President Boediono. In 2008 Dr Muliyani and Dr Boediono, then at the central bank, led a $US750 million recapitalisation of Bank Century, which had been looted by its owners, to protect the rest of the banking system.
Although vindicated by KPK and the Centre for Financial Transactions Reporting and Analysis inquiries, they came under fierce parliamentary and public attack. Public perception is that the administration was dirty in the Bank Century episode.
Which appears to be the case again with Gayus, a bent tax officer. Gayus's antics have exposed corruption at senior levels of the police, the tax office, the judiciary and the prosecution service – all interests well-represented in the national parliament.
The President's directives give KPK, PPATK and his Judicial Mafia Taskforce stronger roles, but the grossly compromised national police remain in charge of the main Gayus investigation.
"The President is trapped in the conflict of political interests," says Indonesia Corruption Watch co-ordinator Emerson Yuntho. "When he pushes on Gayus, the other parties push on Bank Century, where he is vulnerable."