The uproar caused last week by a senior member of the Democratic Party’s accusation that former Jakarta Vice Governor Sandiaga Uno had paid IDR1 trillion (US$70 million) in political “dowry” money in order to secure his nomination as Gerindra chairman Prabowo Subianto’s running mate has died down somewhat, but there are some who are still pushing for the shocking accusation to be investigated by the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu).
Bawaslu Commissioner Mochammad Afifuddin said two organizations have filed official reports with his agency over the accusation made by Democratic Party Deputy Secretary General Andi Arief on the eve of Sandiaga’s nomination. Andi tweeted that the former vice governor had paid IDR500 billion each to Islam-based parties PAN and PKS, two other parties in the coalition supporting Prabowo’s presidential candidacy, in order to support him as Prabowo’s VP pick.
Mochammad said that Bawaslu would study the reports and conduct an investigation into their accusations, including questioning those named in the report were they deemed relevant.
“(Sandiaga) can (be called by Bawaslu). All relevant parties mentioned in the report, we will investigate and summon them,” Mochammad said today as quoted by Kompas.
If Bawaslu was to find proof that Sandiaga had paid to be made Prabowo’s running mate, then he and all of the parties involved would be subject to Article 228 of the 2017 Election Law, which explicitly makes “dowry” payments to influence a political party’s choice of presidential candidate illegal. The penalties for violating the law include the revocation of the candidates’ registrations and a prohibition on the political parties involved from nominating another candidate in the next election.
The two reports already filed with Bawaslu over Andi’s accusation came from two civil society groups: The United Indonesia Federation and the Jokowi-Ma’ruf President Centre Nusantara Volunteer House. Media reports mentioned that they included Andi’s tweets as evidence in their reports but there is no word on whether they had any more concrete evidence to back the accusation.
Andi was at first adamant that his accusation was not a lie and that he had data to back it up. However, after the Democrats decided to join Prabowo’s coalition afterall, Andi backed down from his claims and yesterday even claimed that he had been ordered to make the accusation by his party. However, he said he would stand by the accusation and face whatever legal consequences are coming for him.
Meanwhile, Gerindra, PAN and PKS have all fiercely denied the accusation although they say they will no longer go forward with reporting Andi to the police for defamation after the Democrats joined the opposition.
Sandiaga Uno also firmly rejected the accusation, saying it was ‘very untrue’ and that he was being totally transparent with his finances to relevant agencies including reporting his assets to the Corruption Eradication Commission. He did, however, admit that he was willing to contribute funds to the campaign in the future, which is legal.
The practice of cadres having to pay their parties enormous “dowries” in order to receive nominations and cover the costs of their campaign is extremely pervasive in the world of Indonesian politics. On top of their basic corruption of the democratic process, in many cases candidates end up of having to finance the dowries by making crooked money-making deals once they’re in office.
