Jakarta – The Indonesian police force, widely perceived as the most corrupt institution in the republic, says it will be involved in the selection of new commissioners for the country's antigraft agency.
The police will be responsible for digging up any criminal records for candidates for the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), according to Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso, the National Police's chief of detectives, who is himself overseeing a series of dubious investigations against current KPK officials based on trumped-up charges.
Budi told reporters in Jakarta on Friday that this was the first time in the 12-year history of the KPK that the police had been invited by the selection committee to play a part in the vetting process.
The selection committee began taking applications from the public on Friday morning.
The police and the Attorney General's Office were left out during previous selection processes to allow for transparency and avoid any conflicts of interest. It is unclear why the selection committee this time around has asked the police to be involved, especially at a time when the police force is escalating its hostilities against the KPK.
The detectives' unit, Budi's office, has charged two KPK commissioners – Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto, both now suspended – on criminal charges in cases dating back up to a decade. Police have also named a leading KPK investigator and former police official, Novel Baswedan, a suspect in a separate case.
All the charges are widely seen as being trumped up, brought in retaliation against the KPK's decision in January to name police general Budi Gunawan a corruption suspect.Budi Waseso, a self-proclaimed sycophant of Budi Gunawan, now the deputy police chief, has also made clear his disdain for the KPK, declaring last week that he had no intention of filing a mandatory wealth report with the antigraft body and instead taunting its investigators to compile the report themselves.
He later claimed that his statement, quoted by several credible news outlets, was taken out of context. As of Friday, though, he has still not filed the report.