Jakarta, Monday, September, 28,2009

The team of five, which was specially appointed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to select three interim leaders at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), has received five candidate names in a closed envelope from law experts, a team member said.

"The names were submitted by a member of law organizations, such as the Indonesian Attorney Union [PJI] and the National Police Commission [Kompolnas], during our meeting with them," team member Todung Mulya Lubis told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"During the meeting, there were differences on the urgency of the president's regulation-in-lieu of law on the KPK's leadership, but in the end, everyone agreed that the antigraft body needed to be saved."

Todung was referring to a regulation issued by Yudhoyono aiming to appoint individuals to serve as interim leaders at the KPK.

The KPK has lost three - Antasari Azhar, Chandra Hamzah, and Bibit Samad Riyanto - out of its five leaders after the police charged them with criminal conduct, including masterminding a murder, abuse of power and receiving bribery.

Yudhoyono saw that the KPK was in an emergency situation and needed to be saved by issuing a regulation to fill the slots, however,anticorruption activists claimed the president had tainted and jeopardized the independency of the KPK with his action.

The remaining KPK leaders M Jasin and Haryono Umar initially rejected the regulation, but they changed their minds after they met the President's team.

During that meeting, Jasin and Umar said that they could understand the President's reasons but they also wanted the interim leaders to be those who had sifficient capability and were ready to work starting from day one.

The team has so far agreed on three basic reqruitments for selection of candidates.

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Widodo A.S., another member of the team, said that the most important criteria was the ability to adjust to the culture of the KPK and coordinate with the remaining deputies.

Todung said that more or less of the same criteria were also requested by the organizations the team met during Saturday's meeting.

"They want us to name people who are profesionals in the fields of law, such as attorneys, advocates and policement.

"They also asked for a guarantee that the selected interim leaders would be able to do their jobs peacefully without having to worry about being criminalized."

Todung said that the team would make the final decesion before Sept. 1. "I also hope that president will have the wisdom to accept our decesion. He appointed us as the selection team, therfore he should not reject our recommendation."

Another team member Adnan Buyung Nasution said as quoted by detik.com that he would quit from his job as one of the President's advisory board members should Yudhoyono reject the team's recommendation.

"The president has given us his mandate and trust. Ethically speaking, he must accept our recommendation.

"We cannot force him to agree with our decesion, however, I have a stance of my own." (hdt)