To corrupt politicians, the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK), at its peak, was perhaps like a group of pesky mosquitoes. Tiny, loud, and somehow always around, lurking in the corner, ready to attack anyone.
Since its birth, the KPK has challenged longstanding norms within the country’s bureaucracy. Established in 2002, it was a radical reform trying to tackle a stubborn problem: widespread graft plaguing the system. It acted as a powerful watchdog; a deterrent for ruling elites from acting out of order.
We’ve covered the devious details in the corruption law before, but let’s now go back in time to trace the story of a little giant that was the KPK. In this edition of The Reformist, we track the foundations of Indonesia’s once iconic anti-corruption body, from its hopeful inception to its tragic downfall. As parroted countless times before, reinstating the entity to its former powers must be done if anti-corruption is to be taken seriously by this current administration.
Here is the story of the rise and fall of the KPK, in four acts.
Act I: The birth of a new hope, in times of turbulence
After an economic crisis and a series of mass protests that toppled then-president Suharto and his New Order regime in 1998, the Indonesian public demanded that corruption eradication be at the forefront of any successive administration’s goals.
When Suharto’s successor B.J.Habibie rose to power, he began codifying anti-corruption demands to ease tensions with the disenfranchised public. The Consultative People’s Assembly (MPR) unveiled decree (TAP) XI/1998, explicitly condemning his troublesome predecessor and vowed to run an administration free from corruption, collusion, and nepotism. This decree set the normative framework for Law No.28/1999 on State Administration, which is “Clean and Free from Corruption, Collusion, and Nepotism”.
His administration later doubled down on this agenda by passing Law No. 31/1999 on Anti-Corruption, which established the foundations for investigating and prosecuting graft. For more of an in-depth analysis of the bylaws, namely the ubiquitous ‘state losses’ argument, read our previous article on the topic here.
Under Article 43, the Law also obliged the State to create an independent corruption eradication commission within the next two years. This ruling became the legal DNA for an institution like the KPK to exist.
The former aerospace engineer-turned head of state was never able to create this commission after he resigned a year into his tenure due to a lack of internal political support and being hit with, ironically, graft allegations.
His successor, Abdurrahman ‘Gus Dur’ Wahid, was never able to establish an institution either, due in part to his impeachment two years into his tenure. Yet, despite the political turbulence that defined his final days in office, Gus Dur ensured the foundation for a permanent body remained intact. On 5 June 2001, just weeks before his impeachment, he signed and sent Presidential Letter No. R-13/PU/VI/2001 to the House of Representatives to formally introduce the bill that would eventually become the KPK Law.
This legal baton was passed over to his successor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, when she assumed the presidency in 2001. By then, the “two-year deadline” established under Habibie’s Law No. 31/1999 had already passed with no anti-graft institution in place.
In December 2002, her administration passed Law No. 30/2002, which officially established the KPK as an independent government institution. This law granted the commission extraordinary powers that set it apart from any previous anti-corruption body, including:
Independent wiretapping: The ability to intercept communications without a prior court warrant
Prosecutorial autonomy: The power to both investigate and prosecute cases, ensuring that graft suspects wouldn’t “disappear” in the handoff between agencies.
Precedence: The authority to take over corruption cases handled by the police or prosecutors if those investigations were deemed stalled or compromised.
Act II: Glory days of corruption crackdowns
To mention the KPK in present-day Indonesia often evokes a sense of nostalgia for an era where no one, regardless of their political proximity to the presidential palace, seemed “untouchable.” This era of accountability was prevalent throughout Susilo Bambang Yudhyono’s two-term presidency.
In 2009, Aulia Pohan, the former Deputy Governor of Bank Indonesia and the father of SBY’s daughter-in-law, was convicted for his role in the misappropriation of Rp 100 billion from the Indonesian Banking Development Foundation (YPPI), a move that signaled the KPK’s fearlessness to target individuals within president SBY’s extended family.
In 2012, the KPK brought down Miranda Goeltom, former Senior Deputy Governor of Bank Indonesia, who was found guilty of orchestrating the distribution of Rp 24 billion in checks to dozens of House members to secure her selection for the post.
This era of crackdowns also targeted the regional “little kings” who had flourished under post-1998 decentralization. The most prominent of these was Ratu Atut Chosiyah, the once-powerful “Queen of Banten,” after she was caught bribing Constitutional Court Chief Justice Akil Mochtar with Rp 1 billion to swing a local election dispute.
Apart from its eagerness to target high-profile elites, the KPK was equipped with a powerful institutional ability to conduct sting operations, allowing KPK prosecutors to apprehend suspects in the act. Coupled with their ability to wiretap, this power sets them apart from other law enforcement agencies like the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), which is limited to conventional investigative methods and relies on the police to conduct arrests.
Under president Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s first term, from 2015 to 2019, the KPK, chaired by Agus Rahardjo, recorded all-time highs of over 87 sting operations. This statistic plummeted to 37 operations under chairman Firli Bahuri from 2019 to 2023, after the second Jokowi administration stripped the KPK of its independence.
Prosecutionary powers aside, the KPK’s prestige was so high that it was asked to vet potential cabinet members for Jokowi’s first administration in 2014. Using a “red label/yellow label” system, the anti-graft body screened ministerial candidates, forcing Jokowi to drop several names from his initial list to maintain a clean image of his incoming administration.
Act III: Mass exodus and the downfall of a powerhouse
Who would’ve thought that going after influential elites would have its consequences?
While many would point to 2019 as the year the KPK officially lost its independence into the hands of the central government, attacks against the graft committee had already been underway a decade prior.
Since 2010, the House has actively pushed to revise the KPK Law, with politicians from SBY’s own Democratic Party leading the charge to add the bill into the House’s National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).
These early attempts were largely unsuccessful, primarily because they were met with fierce public resistance and SBY’s own public objections to weakening the agency. Although SBY ended up rejecting any talks of ransacking the agency, he was notoriously wary of the KPK’s growing powers. During a 2009 visit to Kompas Media’s office, he captured this concern bluntly:
“Regarding the KPK, I’m very cautious. Power must not go unchecked. The KPK is already an extraordinary power holder. Its accountability lies solely with God.”
Beyond legislative maneuvers, institutional clashes between the KPK and the National Police (Polri) were commonplace. Police officials publicly criticized what they described as the KPK’s unchecked “superbody” authority to investigate and prosecute anyone it deemed suspicious.
Tensions escalated sharply in 2009 when the KPK investigated Susno Duadji, then-head of Polri’s Criminal Investigation Agency, for misappropriating funds from the 2008 West Java Gubernatorial election. Susno responded with open attacks on the commission, further polarizing public opinion and heating institutional rivalries.
The conflict reached its peak with the criminal prosecution of two KPK leadership officials, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah, by the police on allegations of bribery and abuse of power. Public outrage was overwhelming, culminating in demonstrations and a presidential fact-finding team that ultimately cleared both men of wrongdoing.
The political tide, however, shifted significantly during the transition to the Jokowi administration. The real “fall from grace” arguably began in 2015 when the revision bill finally secured its place in the Prolegnas with virtually no political opposition within the House. Ironically, while the KPK was established under Megawati’s presidency, her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) would go on to become the leading force in revising the law 13 years later.
Although the Law would not be formally ratified for another three years, talks of the bill triggered loud opposition from civil society and a quiet internal collapse, where hundreds of KPK officials left their posts after the bill’s introduction into the Prolegnas.
The final blow arrived in September 2019 with the official passage of Law No. 19/2019. The revision fundamentally altered the DNA of the KPK, transforming its employees into civil servants and establishing a “supervisory board” appointed by the former president. This board was granted the power to approve or deny the independent wiretaps and sting operations that made the KPK so powerful.
In a symbolic yet disheartening homage, protestors laid placards and flowers across the entrance of the KPK headquarters to proclaim the ‘death’ of the KPK.
Saut Sitomorang, then-commissioner of the anti-graft body, resigned in protest of the law’s revision. Two years later, in 2021, dozens of KPK officials were dismissed for “failing” the controversial Civic Awareness Test (TWK), a move widely seen as a mechanism for the central government to sideline outspoken anti-corruption figures. Among those dismissed was prosecutor Novel Baswedan, a widely respected figure who had previously survived an acid attack that left him permanently blind in one eye.
After a decade of attacks, the institutional collapse of the KPK was finally in motion, leaving the central government with greater authority over who and what is allowed to be targeted for graft.
Act IV: Lessons from a fallen giant
Perhaps the days of a feared KPK are now merely fleeting moments of the past. While reinstating the anti-graft body to its former powers remains a sustained demand, its early legal and political foundations can be used as two key lessons for how reform can tackle widespread issues within the system.
#1 When the problem is systemic, you need a radical reform
The KPK proved how bureaucratic norms can be disrupted through shock therapy. After the corrupt New Order, an agency like the KPK was created out of necessity; its bold legal mandates were the product of decades of pent-up public discontent with the government. With mass demonstrations that led to the downfall of the New Order regime still fresh in the minds of the government, they had to come up with an institution that would satisfy the demands of the public to build a cleaner government.
The KPK was then given powers that ensured it could really be effective in its graft crackdowns, and it took full advantage of them and managed to instil fear in less-than-honest officials and politicians. They were so effective in instilling fear that public officials had to spend decades trying to dismantle it altogether.
#2 Public confidence and support are essential
The KPK won the hearts of many not only by virtue of their work and investigating a lot of cases annually, but also by prosecuting a lot of high-profile cases and widely publicized sting operations. In 2019, the KPK was Indonesia’s most trusted public institution. They have unfortunately lost this title in subsequent years. Without this sustained support, their downfall would have occurred way sooner, given how unpopular they were among politicians. Even Jokowi did not dare touch the KPK Law until his re-election was secure with a lot of political capital to burn.
Can we go back to 2018, please?
If President Prabowo Subianto and his administration are genuine about tackling corruption, it needs to move beyond rhetoric and think about revising the institution back to its original 2002 state, galvanizing the institution from its death. This means returning the agency’s full independence and its specific powers, such as autonomous wiretapping and the freedom to conduct sting operations without a supervisor’s green light. Thus making it, once again, a feared and trusted anti-graft institution.
Only then can we hope for a return to real accountability, where no official feels “untouchable” simply because they have the right connections. Without a powerful KPK that is allowed to do its job, any talk of corruption ‘reform’ is only a matter of political window dressing.