Indonesian president dumps police chief nominee in bid to end scandal

INDONESIAN President Joko Widodo on Wednesday dropped his controversial choice for national police chief and appointed new leaders to the anti-corruption agency, to try to resolve a scandal that dogged his early months in office.

Widodo’s decision in January to nominate Budi Gunawan — a politically connected police general under investigation for bribery — disappointed Indonesians who had hoped the new president would usher in cleaner governance in a graft-ridden country.

It also sparked a very public feud between the popular anti-corruption agency and the police that transfixed Indonesians for weeks and tested Widodo for the first time.

Widodo acknowledged the move had been controversial but said he now wanted to “restore calm”.

“The appointment of Budi Gunawan as the police chief had raised differences in public opinion,” he told reporters.

Deputy police chief Badrodin Haiti has been nominated the new candidate and will be considered by parliament, which must endorse police chiefs.

Widodo also temporarily suspended the top two officials at the anti-corruption agency, Abraham Samad and Bambang Widjojanto.

Police had named them criminal suspects, in what activists saw as retaliation for the probe into Gunawan.

Interim commissioners will be appointed, but activists claim Samad and Widjojanto could have been spared had Widodo acted before the crisis got out of hand.

“Although his decision to drop Budi Gunawan was a relief, we are not happy that it was at the expense of two anti-corruption leaders,” Indonesian Corruption Watch activist Emerson Yuntho told AFP.

“It’s too little, too late.”

Widodo postponed — but did not cancel — Gunawan’s inauguration in January when the anti-corruption agency named him a suspect in a bribery case.

The police responded by launching criminal inquiries into several senior anti-graft officials.

As the situation snowballed Widodo, who comes from a humble background and is Indonesia’s first leader from outside the political and military elites, came under increasing pressure to intervene.

Critics suggested he was not dropping Gunawan because the police officer used to be a close aide of Megawati Sukarnoputri, the head of Widodo’s political party who backed him for the presidency.

Many parties — including from Widodo’s own coalition– wanted to see Gunawan inaugurated, and there were even threats of impeachment if the appointment did not proceed.

Zainal Arifin Mochtar, lecturer on corruption at Gadjah Mada University, said the public would be happy with Wednesday’s outcome but more was needed to protect the anti-corruption agency from future attacks.

“The president must follow up with measures to protect the anti-corruption agency or to give them immunity, so it’s not so easy to name commissioners or the investigators as (criminal) suspects,” he told AFP.

The agency has clashed with the police and other powerful bodies in the past as it sought to improve Indonesia’s poor record on graft.

Transparency International ranked Indonesia 107th out of 175 countries in its annual corruption perceptions index last year. A number one ranking means the least corrupt.