Pandaya, Jakarta – In December 2005, Taufiequrrachman Ruki, a retired police general turned graft-buster, got sentimental while addressing the second-anniversary celebrations of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which he leads.
In a speech titled The Anticorruption Drive, a Lonely War in the Jungle of Suspicion, in front of the nation's top law enforcers, he said that the war on corruption was receiving only lukewarm support from the authorities who were supposed to back it.
KPK personnel, he said, were subject to slander, suspicion and counterattacks.
"People will support the anti-graft crusade only if the gun is not aimed at them. People will launch a counterattack when and if they, their interests and or their clique are targeted."
The latest developments prove Ruki right. His daring move to confront State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra over an alleged Rp 6 billion (about US$660,000) instance of corruption at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, which Yusril led during the previous administration, has met with fierce resistance. Yusril has sought a legal showdown with Ruki, whom he has in turn accused of breaking a 2003 presidential decree requiring that any state project worth Rp 50 million (US$5,500) or more be put out to bid.
The KPK has been investigating Yusril's former senior aides and has detained project manager Aji Affendi; Secretary General Zulkarnain Yunus; and Erman Rachman, the president director of PT Sentral Filindo, to which the ministry awarded a 2004 contract to provide Rp 18.8 billion worth of fingerprint devices. The KPK has focused on why the project was awarded without the required tender, and on allegations of price-inflating as well as kickbacks to ministry officials totaling Rp 375 million.
Yusril, a professor in constitutional law at Muhammadiyah University, lost his temper when the KPK summoned him for questioning as a witness on Feb. 15, after his ex-staffers reportedly claimed they were acting on his orders. Although he acknowledged that he personally approved the direct appointment of the contractor, he argued the presidential decree allows such appointments in cases of extreme urgency.
The following day, Yusril met with KPK investigators to demand that they question Ruki for allegedly awarding a wire tapping project to a company without a bid – the same offense that landed Yusril in hot water.
Then came the twist. KPK spokesman Johan Budi said the Rp 34 billion wire tapping contract was legal because the direct appointment was approved by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In fact, Johan said, the document was signed by Yusril on the President's behalf, while the fingerprint device project did not have such a permit.
The presidential decree allows direct appointment for the provision of objects classified as state secrets, and wire tapping equipment falls under this category.
The Yusril-Ruki discord seemed to have subsided after Yudhoyono intervened on Monday, inviting both in a cabinet meeting to settle the animosity in a "customary manner", a euphemism for amicable conflict resolution.
The President, who will do anything to maintain his stature as a typically Javanese "wise" leader, said that awarding projects without tender as Yusril and Ruki did could be right so long as it inflicted no financial losses on the state.
He insisted he would continue with his anticorruption drive but would make sure that the campaign would not cause excessive fear among bureaucrats.
Yudhoyono's intervention was clearly an anticlimax to the high profile Yusril-Ruki affair. It had been widely expected that the conflict would be solved in court.
Yusril, a former chairman of the tiny Islamic-based Crescent Star Party (PBB), has occupied top political positions under four presidents since 1999. He has vowed to keep on fighting. In its corner, the KPK has said it is not fazed by Yusril's counterattack and has vowed to continue probing the alleged corruption.
It's of course difficult to see where the bitter conflict will lead, but one thing is sure: Yusril's confrontational maneuver is giving credence to skeptics' doubts about the Yudhoyono administration's commitment to fighting graft.
How can the administration expect the public to take seriously his promise to uproot corruption when the campaign meets fierce resistance from within his own office?
The bickering could endanger an anticorruption campaign that has reflected well on Yudhoyono.
Could it be that Yusril is exploiting Yudhoyono's apparent reluctance to act assertively against aides embroiled in scandals? The President has been silent amid the public outcry over the East Java mud disaster involving a company controlled by Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie.
Just recently, he ignored the public demand to fire Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni after 200,000 Indonesian haj pilgrims were left without food for 30 hours in Saudi Arabia in December. He also turns a deaf ear to calls for dismissal of Transportation Minister Hatta Radjasa following a string of deadly transportation accidents.
Ruki, who, like Yusril, answers to the President, was only doing his job of cleaning up corruption in the bureaucracy when he summoned the state secretary for questioning.
Anyone wanting a corruption-free Indonesia must fear that the KPK will buckle under Yusril's pressure and the anti-graft campaign will suffer a serious setback. This is the right time to support the anticorruption movement and not leave the KPK fighting a lonely war in the jungle.