A Conversation with Teten Masduki (Part 3)

PART 3 of 3 – Teten Masduki articulates the connection between anticorruption and social accountability, and the revolutionary potential of people who are empowered to access and use information. He concludes with a vision of what he hopes to be able to do for and with Indonesia and the rest of the region in the next few years. Read part 1 and part 2

ANSA-EAP: I am sure you’re a board member of a lot of international organizations. What attracted you to ANSA-EAP, a relatively small effort?

Teten Masduki: ANSA-EAP’s concept is interesting to me. How do you engage society—from the government to the business sector and so on? I think ANSA-EAP’s idea to build and strengthen engagement between civil society and government is good. Civil society should be strong, have good capacity, knowledge, methodology. In my opinion, corruption is not only because of the government. We can establish an anticorruption commission or reform the Attorney-General’s office or the police, reform the bureaucracy but this will not be enough. Corruption will still be prevalent. Corruption is, after all, premised on the unbalanced relationship between society, government and the business.  When the government is too strong and the society is weak, corruption is very high.  So, I think ANSA-EAP’s social accountability perspective is helpful in equalizing and balancing this relationship.

A Conversation with Teten Masduki (Part 2)

In this second installment of a three-part interview, Teten Masduki shares the value of multistakeholder coalitions in his experience of championing reform work, and his desire to influence a wider audience to support the anticorruption movement.  Read part 1, and part 3


ANSA-EAP: From Legal Aid work, what attracted you to Indonesia Corruption Watch?

Teten Masduki:  [Indonesia Corruption Watch] was set up in Suharto’s time. I thought that the problem of our democracy was corruption. Democracy was coming, was underway, but I believe democracy alone is not enough to improve social welfare. From my experience as a labor activist, I knew very well that the problem of corruption was also in the industrial sector. At the time, labor cost was just 4 to 11 percent of the total cost, and the invisible cost was more than 20 percent. So, corruption pushed the lamentable labor condition further. Employers have no choice but to pay the military and local governments bribes. I dreamed that when I finish my work on the labor process, when we have new democratic capabilities, we could establish an anticorruption movement. But I couldn’t implement my dream during Suharto’s time.