IO, Jakarta – The revision to Law No. 32/2002 concerning the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) ended up with a mass of protests. Activists, workers, college students, and even high school students in various regions demanded that the President immediately issue a Government Regulation in lieu of a Law (Perppu), as they think that the revision to KPK Law was not meant to strengthen this anti-bribery institution, but to weaken it.
The Indonesian Survey Agency (LSI) released a survey over this issue. LSI Executive Director Djajadi Hanan stated that 76.3% of the public wants President Joko Widodo to issue a Perppu for KPK. ”That’s more than three quarters of the public who knows about the revision of the KPK Law agrees that the President should issue a Perppu,” he said during the release of the findings of the survey titled “Perppu, KPK Law, and Student Movement in the Eyes of the Public” held at Erian Hotel, Jakarta, on Sunday (06/10/2019).
The intensity of public demand that Jokowi issue the Perppu is inseparable from their views concerning student protests demanding that the KPK Law revision is revoked. They protested in front of the Parliamentary Complex in Jakarta and Regional Parliamentary Buildings in many regions to represent the voice of the majority. Djajadi states that the public basically trusts the President more than the House in terms of eradication of corruption. In other words, the public would definitely support the President if he dares to issue the Perppu KPK. “If he doesn’t issue it, the President might be viewed as ignoring the people’s will, as defying this will. Naturally, it would violate the President’s own vows, including the ones he made during the campaign, that KPK must be strengthened, corruption eradication must be solidified, etc.,” he said.
Djajadi further stated that even though the House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat – “DPR”) might accept or reject the Perppu KPK, survey data shows that the public mostly views Perppu as a way out. “We know that when the Perppu is issued, it will be discussed with DPR to see whether it will be accepted or rejected. However, our data clearly shows that the public’s stance is that Perppu is the way out,” he said.
Meanwhile, a little below the public’s response relating to the issuance of Perppu, LSI survey notes that 70.9% of respondents are aware that students reject the revision to KPK Law. The public states that the revised KPK Law weakens the agency’s power in eradicating corruption. “70.9% states that the revised Law weakens KPK. That’s a solid majority, even though it is not unanimous,” Djajadi said.
Furthermore, LSI stated in its release that 46.8% of respondents believe that nobody was piggybacking on the students’ protest. “46.8% of the public states that the students’ protest was pure (no piggybacking), while 11.8% states that anti-Jokowi people sneaked in on the protests. 16.4% believe that anti-Jokowi factions are the people behind the protests. LSI further stated that 86.6% of respondents are aware that one of the laws the students protested against was the revised KPK Law and that they support the protests. “The majority (60.7%) states that they support these student protests. Only 5.9% stated that they are against the protests, especially the protests relating to revised KPK Law. The remaining 31% is neutral,” Djajadi said.
For this survey, LSI took in respondents randomly from the pool of LSI’s previous national surveys held in December 2018 to September 2019. The pool contains 23,760 people with voting rights. Of this total number of respondents, they selected 17,425 who have phones. Out of these 17,425 people, 1,010 samples were taken using stratified random sampling. Respondents were interviewed by telephone on 4-5 October 2019. The survey’s margin of error is plus minus 3.2%, with a reliability level of 95%. LSI financed the survey independently. (Dan)