It's common knowledge that corruption is so rife in Indonesian politics that many politicians who have already been convicted of graft go on to run as candidates again after serving out their sentences.
While the issue has been getting some more attention recently (especially after President Joko Widodo used the issue to attack his challenger, Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto, in this year's first presidential debate), the recent reveal of all the corruption ex-con candidates running in April's election shows how pervasive an issue it still is.
The General Election Commission (KPU) officially released the full list of corruption ex-cons running last night, and it shows that 40 are running as candidates for regional legislatures (DPRD) and 9 running as candidates for regional representative councils (DPD). There are no former corruption convicts running as candidates for the House of Representatives (DPR).
Here's are the party affiliations of those 40 DPRD candidates:
- Gokar: 8
- Gerindra: 6
- Hanura: 5
- Democrats: 4
- Hanura: 4
- PAN: 4
- Berkarya: 4
- Garuda: 2
- Perindo 2
- PKP Indonesia: 2
- PDI-P: 1
- PKS: 1
- PBB: 1
There are also four parties not running any corruption ex-con candidates: PKB, Nasdem, PPP, and PSI.
KPU released the list on the basis of a law requiring the criminal history of former corruption convicts running as electoral candidates to be disclosed to the public.
President Jokowi put the issue into the spotlight during the first presidential debate on January 17 when he pointed out to Prabowo that his party, Gerindra, has nominated six candidates who had been convicted of corruption.
Prabowo fumbled in his response, calling the data Jokowi was using "subjective" (it wasn't, it was from the NGO Indonesia Corruption Watch) and saying that "perhaps the corruption they [the Gerindra candidates] were involved in was not huge".
If he had been a little more quick witted, he might have noted that Golkar, which is a key member of Jokowi's coalition, is running even more corruption ex-cons than Gerindra with eight. He might have also noted that Jokowi's own PDI-P has had the most MPs jailed on graft charges of any party.
The KPU tried to prevent any corruption ex-cons from running in this election by passing a regulation banning them from competing for DPRD and DPD seats, but it was struck down by the Supreme Court following a legal challenge (a challenge that, it should be noted, was supported by Jokowi's administration as well as almost every political party).