TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Busyro Muqoddas claims he felt relieved he wasn't chosen to be a leader of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), being well-aware of the political reasons behind the selection of the new KPK leaders for the 2015-2019 period. He assumes that the reason he was not selected may have been his hard questions on the lawmakers and his strong opposition to the proposed revisions to Law No. 30/2002 on the KPK.

In mid-December, the House of Representatives' (DPR) Commission III selected five new leaders of the KPK, out of 10 candidates submitted by a panel that President Joko Widodo had selected. Among the 10 nominees, three were experienced KPK officials: Busyro Muqoddas, Johan Budi SP and Sujarnako. Not surprisingly, none of them was selected.

Busyro himself was deputy chairman of the KPK from 2010 to 2014, and became chairman by default in 2011, replacing the chairman at the time Antasari Azhar. When Busyro's term ended in 2014, his name cropped up again among a list of candidates submitted to the DPR for the next term, but he was not selected.

Busyro has always been a fierce critic of any attempt to undermine the KPK's authority. He condemned a lawmaker's suggestion that the KPK's existence be limited to 12 years, questioning its justification. "He must have the intellect of an early education student," commented Busyro.

He has more than once demonstrated his frustration at the government for seemingly allowing such attempts to kill the KPK. He told Tempo reporters Ali Nur Yasin, Iqbal Muhtarom and Pribadi Wicaksono, who met him in Yogyakarta last week, that Indonesia would go back to the stone age if the proposal to revise the KPK were enacted.

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Were you in contact with the DPR during the KPK leaders selection process?

There was a member of the legislature who sent a message via his staff that he wanted to meet me, but I never responded. The next day, I asked who it was from and what it was about, but it was never known.

Was it someone from Commission III?

That's what it said. But I never intended to meet him anyway, except if it was an official summons because they were investigating me. Like the time when Imam Anshori Saleh, head of Commission III, came to my home in his official capacity.

Could that have been why you weren't selected?

Right from the start, I said I refused to do any lobbying. It's to honor my colleagues in Commission III and to preserve my own integrity, because if I joined the KPK through such lobbying, it would have been problematic.

When they voted, you only got two votes.

That's okay. Chandra (Hamzah) in the past got nothing. Two is better than nothing.

You also tend to be very critical toward the DPR. Do you think that could be the reason they didn't pick you?

When I went through the fit and proper test last year, a lawmaker from the PAN (National Mandate Party) faction whose name I forgot, asked why I regarded DPR members as pragmatic and hedonistic, referring to a speech I made at the Ismail Marzuki Cultural Center. He showed me a clipping of the event, and indeed, it made headlines at the time. I explained I never mentioned names, that I said certain people in the DPR were pragmatic. It seems they were offended by that particular point. Besides, at the KPK we found it difficult to avoid using dictions such as the epicenter of corruption, which we found among the political elites, executives and business people.

Was it because of that particular speech?

We also launched a plan to counter the proposed revision to the KPK law, by using the academic approach. The academic paper was for our crime experts to bring with them when they held discussions about it on campuses. The results were published in a white book that essentially rejected those revisions. The fact is that the DPR always seeks to break the KPK. So of course, our interests always clash. There's no chemistry between me and the DPR. And that was evident when only two lawmakers chose me. But for me it's not a problem, although it's a valuable education for the public. In fact, I feel relieved I wasn't chosen. Very relieved. (*)

Read the full interview in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine