General Election & Position Transaction Krisdayanti Wola, Theology Scholar, STT Lewa-Sumba
Monday, 8 July 2019by adminstube
Position transaction after general election or “democracy party” isn’t something strange nor new in Indonesian politics. Presidential, governor, regent, and legislative candidates require plenty of capital and resource to ensure their campaign during the election. Many corporations, businessman, and certain actors tap into this opportunity by providing funding in order to promote their objectives, such as winning tenders without going under a normal bidding process or to put their people inside the government, etc. A term commonly found inside politics is there’s no free lunch.
It has become a big question not only for me but also others whether it is legal for executive and legislative candidates to receive big funding from individuals or certain groups? The writer has an opinion that the answer could be both, true and false. It is true if the candidate who receives the funding pays it back by working honestly, not preferring to certain actors or groups, being fair, creating good work programs and also supporting the marginalized. It is false, when the candidates bring a message from the donor to prioritize the donor’s group than public interest when they win the election. It is such practise of colution, corruption, and nepotism.
Akin to the news collected by the writer from one online media kompas.com related with position trade in Indonesia that; Head of the State Civil Apparatus Commission (KASN) Sofian Effendi admits having detected the existence of position transaction in several ministries in the past two years. “Actually since 2019, we, KASN, have created an analysis on transactional practices in the appointments of high-ranking officials, position trade of high-ranking officials. We are shocked on how massive is the practice,” said Sofian in a discussion at Presidential Staffs Office, Jakarta, Wednesday (27/3/2019). Sofian said that the practice of position transaction occurs in the ministries having duty to develop human resources. Specifically, he mentioned three ministries, that is, Ministry of Health, Education, and lastly, Religion. This article has been issued in Kompas.com entitled “Since 2017, KASN has detected position trade practices in multiple ministries”, https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2019/03/27/15115231/sejak-2017-kasn-sudah-cium-praktik-jual-beli-jabatan-di-banyak-kementerian.
Last but not least, the writer emphasizes how important is the spirit of integrity (alignment between utterance and action) that must be possessed by the country’s leaders. The spirit of integrity e.g. is to be brave enough rejecting interesting offers with nuance of corruption, collusion, and nepotism within. With good spirit of integrity and patriotism, we can exterminate the rot inside politics. Good spirit of integrity can be achieved if leaders are aware that they have to work for Indonesians prosperity. Finding intelligent people in Indonesia is easier than finding people with good integrity. If leaders have such high level of integrity, then Indonesian’s hope for prosperity can be achieved. Let’s continue nurturing the spirit of integrity inside us. ***
