Is Indonesia Really Winning the War on Corruption?

What's it take to declare a victory in the war on corruption? Is it a drop in the number of corruption arrests? A visible campaign against "pungli," or extortion, by police and bureaucrats? A decline in an international anti-corruption organization's "corruption perception" rankings?

Or is it a bigger, even more complex metric? Can anyone really answer right now whether Indonesia is getting less corrupt? Vice President Jusuf Kalla sure thinks so. He was recently speaking at an event marking International Anti-Corruption Day—a United Nations' "holiday" that celebrates the singing of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption—when he said the country was winning the war on corruption.

"I believe that corruption is down, both in terms of numbers and quality," Kalla said at a press event.

But is it really? It's a hard statement to prove at a time when a massive graft scandal—perhaps the biggest since the fall of Gen. Suharto—is currently making its way through the legal system. The e-KTP case—a corruption scandal that saw as much as half of the Rp 5.9 trillion ($413 million USD) budget go missing—is so huge that it's almost beyond imagination. How could trillions of rupiah vanish like that? And how many people are going to be held responsible?

Former House Speaker Setya Novanto was detained in connection with the case after months of drama that included a legal loophole, a host of illnesses, a disappearing act, and a car wreck. The domestic press has been breathlessly covering the sinetron-esque plot twists of the Setya case for months. But is his story the story of Indonesia's corruption problem? Kalla doesn't think so.

"The same old news has been in the newspapers for months—and talked about on TV for hours—even though it only involves one person," Kalla told reporters.

He didn't really specify which case he was talking about, but there's only one man who has been getting that much ink right now. But, of course, that doesn't mean that Setya, and Setya alone, is behind the missing money. When that kind of cash goes missing, it's not all vanishing into one person's bank account.

So while Setya, and four others, have been fingered in the case, there will likely be plenty of others as the investigation continues. Remember how long it took for the Hambalang sports center case to work its way through the courts? The first trial opened back in 2013 and the investigation was still continuing this year.

So if it's not the actual number of corruption cases, then what is it? Lalola Easter, a researcher with anti-graft watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), thinks Kalla might be talking about Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. Transparency International ranks a country's perceived corruption on a scale of zero to 100, with zeero being totally corrupt and 100 squeaky clean. Indonesia's score rose from 32 in 2012 to 37 in 2016—meaning that it's perceived level of corruption had improved.

In 2012, the country was ranked 118 out of 174 countries. By 2016, it rose to 90 out of 176. Now part of this is because other countries actually got more corrupt, according to Transparency International's surveys. Cambodia (156) and Thailand (101), for example, performed pretty poorly last year. So a country's spot on the list doesn't really mean all that much.

Yet, Indonesia's actual score does mean something—just not as much as you might think. Transparency International surveys 13 institutions to figure out their annual scores, but the main focus is on bureaucratic corruption, which really only covers a small segment of the country's overall corruption problem.

Corruption in Indonesia touches ever level of society, from the halls of the House of Representatives to the street in front of your house. When you're asked to pay a bribe at a traffic stop, that's corruption. Same goes for a public official securing a no-bid contract for his friend or family member. Or when someone way down on the totem pole, a teacher or a village head, asks for some cash to do something that should be free… that too is corruption.

There is so much that the Transparency International score doesn't cover that it's hard to really judge a country's success or failure on this figure alone.

“I wonder what’s the foundation of Jusuf Kalla’s statement is, because if it was from Transparency International's index, we need to remember that the survey was only conducted among businessmen,” Lalola told VICE. “That means the data is not comprehensive enough since many other sectors haven’t shown a significant improvement.”

Then there's the fact that the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has more cases today than it did in 2012, when Indonesia was ranked as far more corrupt. In 2012, the KPK had 49 cases. By 2016, the year of the rankings, the KPK was investigating 99 case. This year that number dropped to 54—a figure that's lower than 2016, but still higher than 2012.

That's why you can't just look at the Transparency International report alone to understand the whole picture, explained Wawan Suyatmiko, a research manager at Transparency International's Indonesia office.

"So if someone's saying corruption has gone down, I don't understand that at all," Wawan told VICE. "If anything, the number of corruption cases have increased. The index does state that there's been an improvement, but it's not signifiant. It's really slow—a snail's pace."

So what does an actual turning point in the battle against graft look like? The central government backing the KPK when it comes under fire for doing its job is a good start. The KPK has repeatedly been attacked by both massive institutions, like the National Police and House lawmakers, and individual attackers, like the acid attack on investigator Novel Baswedan.

Each time, the central government did little more than watch the events unfold. If President Joko Widodo's administration was serious about winning the war on corruption, then it should support the KPK with more funding and backup whenever its investigators find themselves in hot water.

Instead, the Jokowi administration seems more concerned with increasing the competency and performance of the country's sluggish bureaucracy than backing the anti-graft agency, Wawan said.

"The current administration may claim to be stomping out corruption, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s more about the improved performance of government officials," he told VICE. "It's not the fight against corruption itself.”

Another step would be to ensure that those who actually go down for corruption spend enough time behind bars that it acts as a deterrent. Most of those jailed for corruption in the first half of 2017 received sentences that averaged out to about two-and-a-half years. And most graft convicts only spend between one and four years behind bars.

“Under Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla, the focus on the law enforcement sector and human rights have been minimal compared to other sectors," Lalola told VICE. "You can tell they are more focused on the economy, development, infrastructure, and capital investment."

Until the government makes anti-corruption efforts a priority, any victory in the war on corruption will remain a distant possibility, Lalola explained.

“Corruption needs to be seen as a whole issue," she told VICE. "Improvement is always appreciated, but the issue of corruption is bigger than what's been claimed as a success story."