BriefingAsia-Pacific

Corruption Concerns Delay Cabinet Picks for Indonesia’s New President

Corruption Concerns Delay Cabinet Picks for Indonesia’s New President
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 21, 2014 (AP photo by Dita Alangkara).

Indonesia’s new president, Joko Widodo, or Jokowi as he prefers to be called, was sworn in Monday in Jakarta. However, he has yet to announce his Cabinet since Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) vetoed eight of his 43 nominations owing to their alleged involvement in graft cases and human rights violations.

Corruption is a persistent concern in Indonesia and was a key issue during both the parliamentary and presidential elections this year. Writing about April’s parliamentary elections in World Politics Review, Andrew Thornley explained:

The primary concern, with Indonesia’s elections and its governance in general, remains corruption, which colors elections from top to bottom: from candidates buying votes for as little as $2, to intraparty rigging of the count facilitated by lower-tier electoral officials, to bribery of the chief justice of the Constitutional Court—the institution trusted to resolve electoral results disputes—to rig rulings even for local-level executive elections.

Despite these concerns, “the election, by most accounts, was largely free and fair and clean,” Sue Gunawrdena-Vaughn reported in World Politics Review in August.

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