Nivell Rayda – As the sun sets, lights are turned on one by one inside houses along Jalan Pejaten Barat Raya, a busy street in South Jakarta. One two-story house, however, remains dark.
Behind the imposing pillars and marble, the home seems empty. For more than a month now, its owner, Democratic Party lawmaker Muhammad Nazaruddin, has left his home in the care of a security guard who can occasionally be seen touring the premises.
Neighbors say it is a far cry from its heyday when it was teeming with life. The who's who of Indonesia's ruling party, at times wearing the party's official blue jackets, often visited the 600-square-meter house.
"Nazaruddin's house was never short of visitors," a neighbor who asked not to be named told the Jakarta Globe. "This street was always filled with cars, sometimes buses filled with visiting orphans or party members. Nazaruddin always [held] gatherings at the house."
But in recent weeks, the house's only visitors have been Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) officers delivering summonses in relation to a graft case in which Nazaruddin is a suspect. Encounters with law enforcers, though, is not new for the 32-year-old politician.
In late 2005, the year he joined the Democrats at the age of 26, Nazaruddin was arrested on suspicion of falsifying documents on two tenders by the ministries of industry and maritime affairs. He was released after less than 24 hours and the investigation was halted in 2007.
In 2008, Nazaruddin was charged by the National Police for fraud and embezzlement in connection with the renovation of an airport in South Sulawesi.
The police alleged he had siphoned Rp 7 billion ($822,000) from 25 subcontractors hired by Nazaruddin's construction company, Guna Karya Nusantara. Nazaruddin was never arrested in the case and no significant progress in the investigation has been made.
Critics suggest Nazaruddin's and his party's influence may have been a factor in authorities' slow action on these cases.
As the Democrats' deputy treasurer, "Nazaruddin monitored the money flow inside the party so he would possibly have knowledge about shady deals and illegal campaign funds," said Boyamin Saiman, chairman of the Indonesian Anti-Corruption Society (Maki).
"At the time, Nazaruddin would have been an asset with his enormous wealth and power to rig a government tender. If the Democrats were really serious about fighting corruption, it could have fired Nazaruddin then," Boyamin said.
The party did the exact opposite during these scandals, putting Nazaruddin in more prominent positions by making him a member of the House of Representatives in 2009 and party treasurer a year later.
Controversies, however, did not stop hounding him. Last year, allegations emerged that Nazaruddin raped a sales promotion girl at a Bandung hotel during the party's national congress in May. In November, tabloid C&R ran a cover story about the rape allegations and all the copies were purchased by "mystery buyers." Nazaruddin was never questioned about the accusation.
This year, after Nazaruddin's name was dragged into the scandal linked to a construction project for the Southeast Asian Games – to be held in Sumatra in November – he was also accused by Constitutional Court Chief Justice Mahfud M.D. of giving an "unsolicited payment" of 120,000 Singapore dollars ($97,000) to the court's secretary, Janedri M. Gaffar.
In addition, he is also accused of rigging a tender at the Ministry of National Education and another project at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration. These allegedly graft-riddled contracts spurred the National Police to relook at Nazaruddin's 2008 embezzlement case.
"If the other [lawmakers] find out that one of Nazaruddin's companies is bidding for a government contract, they immediately back down," said Tom Pasaribu, from the Indonesian Parliamentary Monitoring Committee (KPPPI). "There is no way they are going to outbid him. He was that good a businessman," he said.
His business savvy is usually attributed to growing up as the son of a wealthy palm oil trader, along with six siblings, in Bah Jambi town, North Sumatra. After his father passed away, the family moved to Pekanbaru, Riau, where Nazaruddin owns another house where his wife's family lives.
A testament to his financial success, Nazaruddin owns two properties in Bah Jambi and an apartment in Taman Rasuna, South Jakarta. Like the house on Jalan Pejaten, these residences are silent – their owner having fled the country after the latest graft scandal broke.
Maki's Boyamin suggests that Nazaruddin's aggressiveness both in business and politics – often mixing the two interests – was also his downfall.
Boyamin said: "[He] would have inside access to many government tenders before anyone else. It is obvious that he is abusing his position in the House budget committee. His firms are small but they can outbid big companies like [state pharmaceutical firm] Kimia Farma or [state contractor] Wijaya Karya."