Surely you all know about the ongoing rivalry between Indonesia and Malaysia. Well, it looks like we could soon have something significant to brag about to our Malaysian brothers (besides the fact that our rendang is the original and best).
The recently released 2015 Corruption Perception Index, put together by Berlin-based NGO Transparency International, showed Indonesia’s ranking improving to 88th from 107th in last year’s edition. The index is based on polls about public perceptions of corruption.
The new 88th place ranking still shows that Indonesia is perceived by its population as a country mired in corruption. But the rate of improvement from year to year is significant.
By comparison, Malaysia is currently in 54th place in the index, which is far above Indonesia. However, that represents a drop of of four places from the previous year’s index, showing that Malaysians think corruption is getting worse in their country (we would’ve thought it would have dropped even more, given the ridiculous 1MDB scandal of last year and the current Saudi money scandal).
Transparency International Malaysia’s president, Datuk Akhbar Satar, warned that Indonesia’s double digit moves up in the Corruption Perception rankings in recent years, compared to Malaysia’s relatively stagnant rankings, indicate that Indonesia could soon surpass its neighbor.
“Compared to Malaysians, the people of Indonesia have more will to fight corruption. They are willing to come forward to give information and to become witnesses in corruption cases,” Akhbar said as quoted by Malaysian insider.
He added, “Malaysians are afraid because we don’t like to get into trouble. We love ourselves more than we love our country.”
That’s a generous assessment by Akhbar, and we think he’s right about our will to fight corruption. But unfortunately his praise for Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) seems a bit outdated, considering how much the institution has been weakened due to the criminalization of KPK leaders that has taken place under Jokowi’s watch. While the public may still be on the KPK’s side, government barriers are making it very hard for the anti-corruption agency to do its job properly.
But perhaps we can harness the petty feelings of rivalry many Indonesians have with Malaysia to reinvigorate the fight against corruption. Sure, it would of course be great to have a cleaner government, but we think a lot more people would be excited about anti-corruption if it also meant being able to beat Malaysia at something.
