Icha Rastika, Jakarta – Former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Chairperson for the period 2015-2019, Agus Rahardjo, has revealed how buzzers repeatedly attacked the anti-graft agency through the alleged KPK is a "nest of Taliban" issue.
Rahardjo made the statement when he was speaking about the series of revisions to the KPK Law, which according to Rahardjo, began with his decision to refuse an order by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
In 2017, Widodo summoned Rahardjo to the State Palace and asked him not to declare then House of Representatives (DPR) speaker and Golkar Party chairperson Setya Novanto (Setnov) as a suspect in the electronic ID (e-KTP) mega-corruption case.
"Yes, so the revisions to the KPK Law happened, right, and before the revisions to the KPK Law you need to understand the buzzers were unbelievable, right? (the buzzers made an issue of) the KPK being a nest of Taliban", said Rahardjo during an exclusive interview on the Kompas TV Rosi talk-show on Thursday evening, November 30.
The Taliban are a group in Afghanistan that are viewed as radical and extreme. The alleged Taliban issue was related to the style of clothing worn by then senior KPK investigator Novel Baswedan, a stanch opponent of the KPK law revisions.
According to Rahardjo, on account of the Taliban nest issue, only a few members of the public were willing to defend the KPK. The number of people willing to support the KPK at that time was far less than the during the Cicak vs Buaya (Gecko vs Crocodile) affair in 2009 when the KPK came under attack from the national police.
"Not as many as the Cicak vs Buaya [affair] because they felt that the KPK was like the Taliban, as if all the buzzers' talk was true", said Rahardjo.
Furthermore, Rahardjo revealed how the relationship between the KPK and the Palace became distant after he refused Widodo's order.
At the time the issue of revisions to the KPK were doing the rounds, the KPK leadership was unable to meet with president Widodo. The KPK leadership was not even allowed to meet with Justice and Human Rights Minister (Menkumham) Yasonna Laoly to ask for a draft of the revisions to the KPK Law.
"Never mind meeting with the president, even meeting with the Menkumham was not allowed", he said. "So that's what we suffered", Rahardjo reiterated.
Sometime later, the KPK deputy chairperson for the period 2015-2019, Laode M Syarif, invited Rahardjo to meet with Laoly. But the minister refused to show them a draft of the revisions to the KPK Law.
"So up until the end we didn't actually know what was being revised, what it was we didn't know", said Rahardjo. "That's what we experienced, in our final days at the KPK", he said.
Rahardjo feels that the revision to the KPK Law were related to his position of refusing Widodo's order to halt the case against Setya Novanto because at the time the KPK did not have an Order to Stop Investigation (SP3) mechanism, and once an investigation had been officially started, it could not be stopped.
Yet the order to begin the criminal investigation (Sprindik) against Novanto had been signed by the KPK leadership three weeks before he was summoned by Widodo.
"Because the job at the KPK was like that, so I didn't pay attention to it, I continued with it. But in the end, right, the revisions to the KPK Law were made, essentially these revisions, right, created a SP3 [mechanism in the KPK], then (the KPK) was under the president, said Rahardjo.
"That was one of the things, after the revisions to the KPK Law occurred, that made me contemplate, oh, actually they want to KPK to be able to be ordered around", he said.
Meanwhile, Presidential Expert Staff Coordinator Ari Dwipayana says that the meeting referred to by Rahardjo was not included in the president's schedule at that time.
"After checking, the meeting being discussed wasn't in the president's schedule", Dwipayana told Kompas.com on Friday December 1.
[Translated by James Balowski. Additional text was added to provide context for non-Indonesian readers. The original title of the article was "Agus Rahardjo Cerita Saat KPK Diserang Isu 'Sarang Taliban' Sebelum Revisi UU KPK".]
