JAKARTA: A hefty 15-year prison term for one of Indonesia’s top politicians, who allegedly even staged a car crash to evade arrest, could be a turning point in the country’s war on corruption, observers say, as anger boils over against powerful figures living above the law.
Setya Novanto’s case sparked a mix of rage and disbelief as the disgraced house speaker tried to dodge arrest on graft charges, capped by his suspicious crash into a utility pole shortly after his palatial estate was raided.
The car accident widely believed to have been engineered landed Novanto in a Jakarta hospital bed with medical tubes up his nose, apparently one step ahead of pursuing anti-corruption investigators.
The images sparked a flurry of mocking online memes, including the popular #SaveTiangListrik (save the electric pole) hashtag.
It later emerged that Novanto’s now-indicted lawyer had booked his hospital room before the accident happened.
The 62-year-old hailed by Donald Trump as one of Indonesia’s most powerful men several years ago then unsuccessfully claimed that a bout of diarrhoea left him unable to participate in his trial.
On Tuesday, he was hit with one of Indonesia’s heaviest sentences for corruption after being convicted of taking millions of dollars in kickbacks and bribes linked to the national roll-out of government ID cards.
Novanto, dubbed Mr Teflon, had escaped corruption allegations before including being caught on tape trying to extort a US-based miner and his conviction marked the highest-profile victory in recent memory for Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
“I think this is a milestone for the Corruption Eradication Commission and the anti-corruption movement in general,” said Adnan Topan, coordinator for the non-profit Indonesia Corruption Watch.
“Setya Novanto is very powerful. He has a strong network.”
Novanto was among dozens of politicians, government officials and businessmen implicated in the scandal, which saw an estimated $170 million syphoned off the $440 million ID card project.
It was the latest example of graft in a country where the legacy of notoriously corrupt dictator Suharto, suspected of looting billions of dollars from state coffers, still looms large.
Indonesia ranked 96th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2017 corruption index.
It also scored a lowly 37 on a perceived public corruption scale, with 100 being ‘very clean’ and zero ‘highly corrupt’.
The House of Representatives, where Novanto served as speaker, is widely viewed as one of Indonesia’s most graft-riddled institutions.
“Eradicating corruption and patronage go hand in hand — I don’t think they are going to be very easily removed from Indonesia’s politics,” said Deasy Simandjuntak, a visiting Indonesian researcher at the Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.