Combating Corruption in Yudhoyono's Indonesia: An Insider’s Perspective

This paper shares my experiences in combating corruption under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) administration from 2004 to 2014. In particular, I want to give you my inside story as President SBY’s Special Advisor for Legal Affairs from 2008 to 2009; his Special Advisor for Legal Affairs, Human Rights, and Anti-Corruption from 2009 to 2011; and his Deputy Minister for Law and Human Rights from 2011 to 2014. I hope my experience of six years in government that I will share with you tonight may be of some use in building a better understanding of how difficult is to combat corruption, even for the strongest authority in the country, the President.


Constitutional Powers
• Constitutional powers: the authority a president has, as outlined in the constitution. • The more s/he has, the more effective a president can be, and vice versa. • The president after the reformasi, especially after the four constitutional amendments in 1999 -2002, is constitutionally a much weaker president.

Political Support
• Political support: support from political parties, especially those who have seats or members in the parliament. • None of the post-reformasi presidents have enjoyed a majority in the DPR (legislature). • To be an effective president, one should have at least majority support from the DPR. • The president has no option other than to establish a solid coalition, but usually ends up with a sulit coalition.

Control
• Controls = checks and balances • A president with more constitutional powers and enough political support may still not be a good president unless there is an adequate system of control. • A president who is not controlled will be very effective but, at the same time, destructive. • A president subject to too much control will be ineffective.
• After reformasi, control of the president comes from many directions. • These increases made no significant difference to the struggle against corruption.

Miscalculation
• President SBY was more optimistic about his second term. • He and I did not realise that political attacks in SBY's second term would be sometimes be more frequent and intense than in his first term. • The most dangerous attacks came from within the coalition.

More Solid 1 st Term Coalition
• Coalition support during President SBY's first term was more solid than in his second term. More Sulit 2 nd Term Coalition • The situation was different in the second term.
• This time Golkar's support was not as strong.
• The half-hearted support of Golkar had a significant impact on the solidity of the coalition. • Moreover, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), another coalition member, took the same position as Golkar: to only partially support the President.

SBY's Dilemma: expel Golkar and PKS?
• Golkar and PKS aggressively initiated a Special Committee to investigate the Bank Century case. • A former senior minister said he advised SBY to expel both Golkar and PKS from the coalition. • I gave the same advice, but I also understood the dilemma SBY faced at the time. • After making more careful political calculations, SBY decided to keep both parties inside, rather than let them join the opposition.

A Clean Political Landscape is a must
The six month Century case battle showed clearly that the war against corruption cannot be successful without a clean political landscape. Even a strongly mandated president will always have make careful calculations if he or she wants to carry out anticorruption reforms.

Political Stability Vs Anti-Corruption Agenda
• The first term of the SBY's presidency was more stable. • Political support was more solid for President SBY and JK than for SBY and Boediono • However, 'more stable' does not mean 'less corrupt'.
• In fact, if you want to seriously combat corruption, the political situation will NOT be stable.

Political Support is not always good
• Political support is not necessarily positive.
• Regrettably, the numbers of tycoons (konglomerat) who support the parties are not many -therefore, Indonesian parties are easily influenced by just a few oligarchs. • World Bank: Indonesia ranks as the third worst concentration of wealth: only 10% own 77%, or 1% own 50.3%, of the country's wealth. • The Economist: Indonesia ranks as the seventh-worst on the cronycapitalism index: two-thirds of the richest Indonesian run their business with the support of, or in collusion with, the authorities.

SBY & Anti-Corruption Agenda
• The first instruction issued by President Yudhoyono was on corruption eradication acceleration.

SBY & Ad Hoc Committees
• President SBY's ways to set up an ad hoc committees showed how complex the problem is.

SBY & Support for the KPK • The President knew the KPK is an independent body, but believed respectful communication is always important. • SBY insisted that such communication should not be an
intervention in the KPK. • Indeed, the SBY "allowed" the KPK to investigate corruption cases against Aulia Pohan, father-in-law of his eldest son. • SBY also did not use his presidential power to stop corruption cases against leaders of his own Democrat Party.

SBY & the Battle against Judicial Mafia
• To follow up one of the recommendations of the 8 Team, SBY formed the Task Force for Eradication of Legal Mafia. • SBY told me that he wanted to put the battle against the judicial mafia as his number one priority for the 100 Days Program that would start his 2 nd term. • One of the best known cases was the Gayus Tambunan case.

SBY & the Gecko Vs Crocodile #2
• In 2012, another conflict took place between the KPK and corrupt policemen: Djoko Susilo, a two star general.

SBY & Public Perceptions
• SBY always monitored the media-including social media-when considering policy, particularly on anti-corruption. • His decision would therefore be influenced not only by political considerations but also public perceptions. • However, not all public pressure effectively influenced SBY's decisions. • For example, SBY was very careful in making decisions in relation to clemency and the death penalty, despite strong public support for executing drug dealers

Conclusion
• The conclusion is not unique. Indonesia's experience is similar to other countries that face major corruption problems. • The president does not have not a magic spell that can easily make corruption disappear. • The president cannot be effective in running the country without strong constitutional powers, majority political support and sufficient controls (checks and balances). • In Indonesia, post-reformasi presidents, including SBY, face major challenges to delivering an anti-corruption agenda.

Keep on fighting for a better Indonesia
Terima kasih denny.Indrayana@unimelb.edu.au