Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Muninggar Saraswati – Snowballing public support for the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in its conflict with the National Police and the Attorney General's Office is an indication of public fear over attempts to undermine reform, analysts say.

"It is very clear that Indonesians consider the KPK a symbol of reform. Their persistent supports shows that they do not want to see the reform process fail," Ikrar Nusa Bakti, a political observer from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said on Tuesday.

The current movement, he added, was a rare outpouring of public anger following the "reformasi" movement more than a decade ago that forced President Suharto to step down after 32 years of authoritarian rule under his New Order government.

"The KPK represents the public hope for successful reform. It's been a painful process for everyone here," Ikrar said. "Therefore, they do not want it to fail. Any attempt to undermine the KPK is regarded as attacking reformasi."

Rusdi Marpaung, the executive director of Imparsial, a human rights group, said the last time he saw such a movement was in 2001 – and that ended with the impeachment of President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, who was implicated in a corruption scandal.

"It's been a long time since we saw such a people power movement," Rusdi said. "It reminds us all about practices that occurred during the Suharto era. One of the reformasi calls was to eradicate corruption. But this conflict reveals that there are still people in power who retain the New Order mind-set. They still exist and have a say here," he added.

Danang Widoyoko, the coordinator of Indonesian Corruption Watch, an antigraft non governmental organization, said people considered the commission's current woes to be an attempt by the country's corruptors to join forces with corrupt officials. "People know that the KPK, as a child of reformasi, is an easy target to be closed down or undermined," he said.

Another "child" of reformasi here is the Constitutional Court, which has so far manages to convince Indonesians that it is a credible institution, Danang said. "However, it is difficult to undermine the Constitutional Court because it is mandated by the Constitution while the KPK was formed by a law, which is easier to change," he said.