An antigraft official has called into questioned why a district head arrested in a major bribery scandal in October is still set to be inaugurated tomorrow by the Home Affairs Ministry.

Bambang Widjojanto, a deputy chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), said on Monday that allowing Hambit Bintih, the re-elected head of Gunung Mas district in Central Kalimantan, to formally take office would only allow him to appoint his cohorts to key positions in the district administration.

"He's currently being investigated and has been named a suspect," Bambang said. "I'm not saying he's definitely guilty, but the preliminary findings are strong enough."

The KPK has a near 100 percent conviction rate against those it has charged with corruption.

Bambang urged Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi to seriously reconsider the planned inauguration of Hambit, saying that although it could be legally justified, it was still morally questionable.

"The government should learn from previous mistakes, because there will potentially be a lot of trouble arising from this inauguration," he said.

Hambit, the incumbent in Gunung Mas, was declared the winner of the Sept 4 election with 52 percent of votes, with his closest challenger, Jaya Samaya Monong, getting 38 percent.

However, Jaya contested the results at the Constitutional Court, claiming widespread poll fraud, including the mobilization of minors by the incumbent's camp to casting votes, as well as the recognition of hundreds of votes in favor of Hambit from a nonexistent ward and the disqualification of hundreds of ballots from one of challenger's strongholds.

Hambit was arrested in Jakarta on the night of Oct. 1, in a series of raids that also netted Akil Mochtar, the chief justice of the Constitutional Court, and charged with bribing the judge for a favorable ruling in the dispute.

Akil was also charged in the case and accused of taking up to Rp 3 billion ($246,000) in kickbacks, as well as another Rp 1 billion in connection with another dispute being heard over an election in Lebak district in Banten. The KPK is investigating whether he took bribes in any of the dozens of other election disputes that he heard during his four years at the court.

Despite the controversy, the court went on to rule on Oct. 9, just eight days after the arrests, that Jaya did not have a case, effectively upholding the victory for the now-jailed Hambit.

The Home Affairs Ministry did not immediately respond to the issue of Hambit's inauguration. It remains unclear whether the event will go ahead, although the KPK said it had not received any request from the ministry to allow Hambit to attend.

The scandal over the bribery of the country's top judge has continued to unfold, and claimed as its latest victim Ratu Atut Chosiyah, the governor of Banten, who was arrested last Friday for her alleged role in overseeing the kickbacks in the Lebak case.

In his response to Akil's arrest, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a regulation in lieu of law, or perppu, on Oct.17 aimed at putting in place measures to prevent similar cases in future.

The perppu, when first issued, made two primary amendments with regard to the appointment of Constitutional Court justices.

First, that a candidate must not have been a member of a political party within the seven years prior to admittance. Akil previously served as a Golkar Party legislator for 10 years before quitting in 2009 and joining the court that same year.

In the Lebak case, the losing candidate contesting the election result was from Golkar, as is Ratu Atut.

The second key change introduced in the perppu was for the establishment of a seven-member panel of experts by the Judicial Commission, which oversees the conduct of the country's judges, to screen candidates for the Constitutional Court and draw up a shortlist to be submitted to the House for final vetting.

The government, the House and the Supreme Court will each put forward one candidate for the panel, while the Judicial Commission will choose the other four.

The perppu was formally ratified by the House of Representatives on Friday. In addition to the two central amendments, the now ratified legislation also ensures the establishment of a permanent body tasked with monitoring judicial conduct, and requires that all future Constitutional Court candidates be in possession of a doctorate in a legal field.