Page 139 - SCANDAL AND DEMOCRACY

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unfolding story that rival media could pursue. As Detikworld said, “Jam-packed with
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all the twists and turns of a good thriller, the case just gets more interesting.” Above
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all, its pursuit served President Wahid’s political opponents.
At the center of the scandal was Bulog, a much-abused vehicle for funding cor-
ruption, found that same May to have leaked Rp2.7 trillion (approximately $30 mil-
lion) from its nonbudgetary funds over the previous five years. Given the scale of
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the leakage and Golkar’s long control over Bulog, it was surprising that Golkar would
choose corruption involving the agency to attack Wahid. Yet Golkar leaders publicly
lambasted Wahid as if their own party somehow held the high ground in managing
Bulog’s accounts. Leading the charge was the DPR Speaker and Golkar chair Akbar
Tanjung, who had announced in May that the president must disclose all he knew,
warning that any failure on Wahid’s part to provide “a satisfactory explanation” would
damage his credibility.
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Using Bulog to attack Wahid set in motion a cycle of reciprocal revelations that
ultimately would escape Golkar’s control. But for the present, the party’s influence
in parliament protected it from repercussions. In June 2000, Wahid’s PKB retaliated,
initiating a probe into the suspected Rp2.7 trillion leak from Bulog under Golkar’s
earlier administration. PKB targeted Tanjung directly, faulting him as state secretary
under Habibie for allowing Bulog to keep these discretionary funds separate from its
official budget, despite directives from the IMF to integrate the two. In July, PKB
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demanded investigation into irregularities cited in an audit of Taperum, the Civil
Servants Housing Savings program in operation during Tanjung’s term as minister
of public housing. When the media confronted him over “Taperumgate,” Tanjung,
according to an observer, “could not conceal his ire.”
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On September 21, Indonesia Corruption Watch added its own evidence to the
allegations mounting against the DPR Speaker. As both scandals widened, in January
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2001 PKB legislators renewed their demand for a probe into Taperum while lodging
another complaint against Tanjung—this time, concerning financial leakage from an
Inter-Parliamentary Union conference held the previous September. A few days later,
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the National Ombudsman Commission recommended investigation into allegations
from Tanjung’s own nephew that he had forged documents in a 1995 land sale when
serving as minister of public housing.
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On February 2, 2001, Wahid’s party, PKB, announced that they had submitted
three separate proposals, signed by 110 legislators, demanding inquiries into these
and other scandals implicating Golkar, including a massive hemorrhaging of funds
from the Central Bank’s liquidity assistance scheme (Bantuan Likuiditas Bank Indo-
nesia, BLBI) and additional losses from Bulog’s nonbudgetary funds. If these charges
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were accurate, the sums disappearing from Bulog’s accounts were substantial by any
standard, but the leakage from BLBI’s accounts was staggering. A PKB leader noted
that as much as “96 percent . . . of the Rp144 trillion BLBI funds have been embez-
zled, and none of the 157 persons [implicated] have been jailed.”
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Yet even the BLBI revelations failed to generate anywhere near the attention
given the scandals implicating Wahid. In the midst of his attacks on Tanjung, three
magazines— Gatra , Panji Masyarakat , and Forum Keadilan —published cover stories
alleging that Wahid had once had an illicit relationship and offered as evidence an
incriminating photo. It was only when Wahid’s minister of defense, Mohammad
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Mahfud, began using the media to fight back that the president’s party found the
means to regain leverage against Golkar. That same February, Mahfud leaked informa-
tion to the media indicating that Golkar had siphoned off Rp90 billion from Bulog’s