The Corruption Eradication Commission is on the verge of becoming merely a place where proxy wars between the National Police, Attorney General's Office and Indonesian Military take place.

Each institution is nominating their own candidates to become commissioners of the antigraft body, or KPK.

The police are ready to offer three of their generals, while the Indonesian Military (TNI) has presented one candidate of the same rank. The AGO is set to announce its own candidate soon.

These three institutions may very well end up dominating the KPK's five-person leadership with, for example, two police generals, two prosecutors and one TNI general. And even if each gets one representative as commissioner, they will still make up the majority of the anti-corruption agency.

As an extension of their respective institution's interests, these candidates – should they be selected – will only work to protect their own. Which means that the KPK may no longer investigate any members of the police, AGO or TNI for corruption.

We can be sure that other institutions, such as the courts and political parties, will nominate candidates purely to prevent the antigraft body from investigating them in the future, leaving the KPK impotent and Indonesia a loser in the battle against corruption.

The KPK's raison d'etre is to fill the void of corruption busters because the police and AGO are unable to do this job. Now that the KPK has been paralyzed and the public is made to believe that both the police and AGO can handle big graft cases, Indonesia may no longer have any reason to have an antigraft agency.

We, however, will not resign ourselves to that possibility. The police, AGO and TNI are far too corrupt, and we believe the fight against graft is far too important for the nation for it to be controlled by them.

We urge the KPK selection committee to remain independent and choose the right candidates with both hearts and conscience.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/editorial-end-KPK-know/