In a good regency, if either one of regent, councilors, police or prosecutors is corrupt and committing crime then the others will take action to make sure these criminals are punished or have him or her replaced, and the system can be fixed and returned to a balance. This is how a healthy democracy works: a functioning check and balance mechanism.
To make sure there is another check if the government bodies are not functioning, there must be independent local media and civil society group as extra government institutions to check them.
But what if most or all of these institutions are corrupt and conspired to help each other to steal from the people and the state? The result will be absolutism as well as massive and prolonged corruption and crimes without anybody or any party can do something about it, destroying the livelihood of people as a whole in the process.
Also, each of these officials have immense wealth to pay any watchdogs standing in their way. So, they can pay the media, NGOs to stay silent, and even join the crimes.
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This is what has happened in Langkat, North Sumatra, for so long until the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) caught Langkat Regent Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin red-handed when receiving bribes just last week in a squad’s special operation. The arrest and the subsequent findings revealed how massive his crimes are. Dozens of people were found to have been caged in small cells within the regent’s house complex. They have been forced to work in his palm oil plantations across Langkat. To prevent them from running away, they were locked up in prison-like cells. They will be picked up by truck early in the morning and put back in their cells in the evening. It’s a modern-day slavery in a real sense.
Despite the regent’s arrest and revelation of such a blatant slavery with witnesses, pictures and videos as proofs, the local police supported and repeated the regent’s narrative that all of these human beings are drug addicts, and the regent merely provide a safe place for them in an attempt to cure them from their addict.
The police stated that they allowed the practice to continue for so long because they believed in the regent’s explanation. But this statement is insulting the logic of the public. How can the police did not realize such a naked fact right before their eyes? Did not they see every day the condition of these people? Have there any people talked about the suffering of these prisoners? Where are the councilors, the local people’s representatives? Are they supposed to supervise the regent?
The hard truth is that the police and the councilors have all conspired with the regent to suppress the fact, or the more accurate explanation is that all of them are part of the perpetrators who could have received share from the crimes, or could have received kickbacks from the regent.
The fact that the regent could do his crimes for so long also shows the impotence of the local media and NGOs in the regency.
Thus, Terbit Rencana Perangin-Angin is actually not a regent. He is a king in Langkat – albeit a small king — because there is no parties or institutions can check him. He has an absolute power within Langkat. With property and assets spread across the regency, basically, he is Langkat. It takes super body from Jakarta, like the KPK, to stop his crimes.
But Langkat is only one of many other regions across Indonesia to have been led by regent, mayor or governor with absolute power. So, the case of Terbit Rencana Perangin-Angin is hardly unique. In January alone at least two other region’s heads were arrested by the KPK for receiving bribes. In January 13, the KPK arrested Abdul Gafur Mas’ud, the regent of Panajam Paser Utara in East Kalimantan for receiving bribes. He was arrested together with many other officials of the regent, indicating that most, if not all, of the regency’s officials have involved in corruption. The question is where is the police? Prosecutor? Why must KPK?
Previously in Jan. 5, the KPK also arrested Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi for similar crime.
In total the KPK has arrested 167 governors, regents and mayors since 2004. It’s almost one third of total region heads in Indonesia. But many have alleged that many more governors, regents and mayors have actually involved in corruption. It’s just that they have not been caught red-handed by the KPK. Meanwhile, trillions and trillions of rupiahs are stolen from the people every year.
While electoral and party systems have encouraged these region’s head to accept bribes, the weak law enforcement and impotent media and civil society groups allow it to happen massively and continuously. Police, prosecutors and judges at the provincial, regency and city levels are mostly corrupt, just like what happened in Langkat.
So, there is only three ways of solving the problems. The first one is by strengthening law enforcement. The more realistic way of achieving this is by empowering the KPK to have branches in every province, regent and city because we can’t rely on local police or prosecutors. This way, the KPK can directly and continuously monitor the regional heads, and not using special operation which is limited and sporadic.
The second one is by strengthening and cleaning local media and non-government watchdogs or civil society groups in each city, regency and province. If the law enforcement bodies fail to do their jobs then these independent forces can go public and go national so that the public and higher authorities can step in.
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The third is by changing the election system with focus on improving party supervisory and scrutiny by changing the political party law. This way, costs for candidates to run and win elections can be reduced significantly, preventing them to recoup the costs by corruption.
While the solutions are actually crystal clear, the realization is not. The main problem is that those who can realize these solutions – lawmakers, political party chairs, and bureaucracy – are as corrupt as – if not more corrupt — than those in the province, regencies and cities. They will not want to change the system as it won’t benefit them. In fact, they will have less and less bribes coming from the regions. So, it comes down to chicken and egg problem.
And most unfortunately, we have yet to have a president that was brave and clean enough to use his or her power to break this vicious circle and reform the system entirely. Will we have him or her in 2024, or can we have such a leader at all?
