Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) warned Thursday that direct elections across the region would be prone to corruption and reminded candidates vying for governor, mayor and regent posts to refrain from illegal methods.

The warning came from KPK advisor Said Zainal Abidin, who said the KPK has received complaints from the public on corrupt practices in the regional leadership elections.

"We have received 40,000 complaints on graft cases, from bribery to regional leadership elections," he said, without providing details.

When talking before the Medan mayoral candidates in a seminar at the North Sumatra gubernatorial office in Medan, Zainal disclosed that the elections were prone to various aspects of corruption committed in the field, such as vote-buying, which candidates could not likely avoid.

Zainal said based on KPK observations, the corrupt practices in the election process were generally due to the presence of corrupt individuals who were involved as candidate sponsors.

"The candidates should be wary of their acts. [Regional leadership candidates] are not corrupt, but others would turn you into a corrupt person."

He said many regional head candidates were initially regarded as clean, but when they took up their positions they become corrupt, adding many regional heads had been arrested by the KPK for their involvement in corruption.

Asked how many regional leaders the KPK had detained, Zainal said he did not remember the actual number, but only cited the detention of Medan former mayor Abdillah and former deputy mayor Ramli Lubis who was involved in embezzling funds from the city budget as among the examples.

He added the KPK would never suspend a case in the middle of the way, adding it is currently handling the alleged misappropriation of funds from the regency budget involving former Langkat regent Syamsul Arifin, who is now North Sumatra Governor.

Syamsul had undergone examinations at the KPK office in Jakarta several months ago.