Many Indonesians would say that the biggest problem the country faces is political corruption, which is undoubtedly holding the nation back from progressing faster than it currently is.
But Vice President Jusuf “JK” Kalla seems to be a man who sees the glass as half full, at least when it comes to talking about corruption. When he gave a speech at the Anti-Corruption Summit 2016 in Yogyakarta today, he said that Indonesia is the best country in the world when it comes to tackling corruption.
“We have punished [corruptors] extraordinarily. In other countries, if a minister gets jailed for corruption, it becomes world news. We’ve jailed nine [ministers]. In other countries if the governor of a central bank goes to prison, the currency fails, whereas we come through just fine,” JK said, as quoted by Okezone today.
JK noted that in the past 10 years, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has arrested nine former ministers, some of whom have been jailed. In addition, they have nabbed three political party chairpersons, 19 governors, 46 mayors, 100 regents and regional councilors, and two central bank governors.
While that may be an impressive feat by the KPK, one which we should be thankful for, it is also damning indication of just how deeply entrenched corruption is in Indonesian politics. In fact, Indonesia scored an embarrassingly low 36 out of 100 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index study in 2015, ranking us 88th out of 168 countries.
Some would also argue that the focus should not be on how many corrupt politicians a country can catch, but rather how to prevent more from committing graft. In that respect, analysts point out that Indonesia’s money-centric political system is very conducive to corruption, while the punishments handed out to convicted corruptors have often been criticized as too weak and therefore a weak deterrent to others.
