TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo should not grant the demands of House of Representatives (DPR) members to appoint Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan as deputy national police chief. The president is not obligated to bow to the DPR's demands, even though the parliamentarians indicated it would make it the condition to approve Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti as the new police chief.
The mounting pressure to appoint Budi emerged during a consultation meeting between the president and DPR leaders last week. The move was led, not surprisingly, by Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) legislators.
There is no need for sophisticated debates and arguments to reject this preposterous demand. The president only needs to repeat his clarification when he withdrew Budi's nomination as police chief. At the time, Jokowi stated that Budi's nomination had caused divisions among the public. With the aim of establishing calm and stability, the nomination of Budi, an aide to former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, was annulled.
Jokowi also erased Budi's name from a list of candidates to be considered as members of his cabinet. At that time, the name of Budi, who heads the Police Education Institute, was scratched because it was marked in red by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), a sign that the person in question could, in the future, deal with the law over issues of corruption.
Unquestionably, legal issues will continue to haunt Budi. Public rejection is bound to follow him everywhere he goes, given that a pending corruption case during the time he headed the Police Human Resources division, has yet to be closed. When he was indicted, the KPK suspected the sources of his Rp55 billion account were unclear. It could have been, they alleged, linked to bribes in exchange for favorable positions within the Police Force. The suspicions were reinforced when it was discovered that the depositors were other police officers, like himself.
The recent legal process following the KPK's investigation of Budi's bribery case was not necessarily dismissed. The transfer of new cases from the Attorney General's Office (AGO) to the Police Crime Investigation division has raised suspicions that there may be an attempt to erase Budi's sins.
The position of a deputy police chief is very strategic. As the second-in-command he represents the police chief when he is inconvenienced. The deputy police chief will also sit in the Officers Promotion Board, which oversees promotions and placements of officers throughout Indonesia.
The ultimate decision lies with the president, as is clearly written in Article 57 of Presidential Decree No. 52/2010 on the Organization and Protocol of the National Police. The placement and dismissal of two-star officers and above are to be determined by the police chief, in consultation with the president.
There are other candidates for the deputy police chief job. In making his evaluation, the president should take into consideration the candidates' capacity, loyalty and background.
He needs to select the best. Candidates with bad marks should just be erased from the list. (*)
