Ulma Haryanto – It's all a matter of politics, corruption watchdogs say, when figuring out why efforts to eradicate corruption over the past decade seem to have done very little.

"Political parties in this country do not think that they have to be accountable to their constituents," Danang Widoyoko, chairman of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said in a lecture at the Education Ministry organized by government reform advisory institution Kemitraan.

"They listen more to their donors who gave them money during the election period."

In the political arena, Danang continued, there is almost no real opposition, because every party wants to join the ruling coalition. "Running a political party is expensive, so they only act based on financial gain," he said.

Further, the people running today's major political parties are still either the same old players or their children. "Major parties who are backed by the conglomerates of the New Order will continue to reign while smaller, newer parties will have a very slim chance to make it through the elections," the activist said.

According to a national corruption survey by Kemitraan, the people's perception toward the government in 2001 was not much different from 2010. "In 2001, 70 percent of our 2,300 respondents admitted that corruption is rooted and entrenched in the country and the police, court, prosecutors, were the top three institutions that they don't trust," Kemitraan official Laode Syarief said.

In 2010, a similar survey was conducted, and it showed that the average level of people's distrust toward legislators, police, judicial and prosecutorial institutions were still on average high.

"Corruption eradication efforts in the country were relatively stagnant because the decision makers in the legislative, executive and judicial institutions were corrupt," Laode continued.

As a result, he said, the country has no holistic anticorruption program, weak commitment from the leaders and lack of realistic and measurable corruption eradication targets.

Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairman M. Jasin said that since 2004, the antigraft body has handled cases involving 43 legislators and councillors, 131 state officials and one judge. "Last year, we also received 394 gratification reports that implicated state officials," he said.

Danang suggested looking into the possibility of state-funded parties, which would not be accountable to private interests and could be held to standards of good governance.

Laode also added that a clear corruption eradication plan should be written out for every state institution, including regional governments.

"There should be clear and measurable targets, the president should lead the implementation and [there should be] a clear sanction for those who failed to comply, and a balance between pre-emptive, prevention and prosecution of corruption," he said.