Concern is growing over the potential impact of amendments to the 2002 law that established the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK). A respected local anti-corruption watchdog, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), said in late April that the proposed amendments would greatly weaken the KPK, which spearheads the fight against graft. Amendments to the law proposed by the DPR would remove the commission's authority to prosecute suspects and restrict its ability to collect evidence through wire taps, requiring it to seek a court order first. Legislators argue that the Attorney-General's Office has sole authority to prosecute criminals. In April the attorney-general, Basrief Arief, said that prosecutions in all courts should be centralised under his leadership, including cases heard by the Anti-Corruption Court.

Policymakers are also seeking to abolish a provision that prohibits the KPK from dropping a case once it has begun an investigation. This serves to ensure that the commission launches a formal investigation only once it has gathered strong evidence, and also ensures that, once it has begun, the judicial process cannot be halted by bribing investigating officers and judges. Both the right to launch independent prosecutions and the inability to halt cases lie behind a conviction rate for the KPK that runs close to 100%. This is in stark contrast to corruption cases prosecuted by the Attorney-General's Office, which rarely result in successful prosecutions. According to ICW data, in 2010 the KPK arrested 69 suspects in 23 cases that accounted for estimated state losses of Rp619bn (US$68m). The watchdog has also questioned the DPR's motives for amending the law and weakening the commission.

Resistance to the KPK within Indonesia's establishment is likely to be hardened further by revelations that it is investigating the alleged involvement of the co­ordinating minister for the economy, Hatta Rajasa, in a corruption case involving the procurement of trains from Japan in 2006-07. Mr Rajasa, who is also the chairman of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and who is one of Mr Yudhoyono's closest advisers, was transport minister at the time. The former director-general for railways at the Ministry of Transport, Soemino Eko Saputra, has already been named as a suspect in the case. Mr Saputra has alleged that Mr Rajasa was also involved. The KPK lost the support of Mr Yudhoyono in 2009, after it imprisoned Aulia Pohan, the father-in-law of the president's eldest son, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, for his role in corruption at Bank Indonesia (BI, the central bank). Mr Rajasa is also on the verge of joining the extended Yudhoyono family, through the pending marriage of his daughter, Siti Ruby Aliya Rajasa, to Mr Yudhoyono's youngest son, Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono. The prospect of one of his soon-to-be close relatives being convicted for corruption is unlikely to endear the president to the KPK.

Meanwhile, the Judicial Commission of Indonesia (KY) has announced that it has identified possible ethical violations by judges in the murder trial of the previous KPK chairman, Antasari Azhar. In 2010 Mr Azhar was sentenced to 18 years in prison for organising the 2009 murder of a businessman, Nasruddin Zulkarnaen. The KY has indicated that judges may have ignored expert opinion on ballistics and information technology that would have been favourable to Mr Azhar. The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) is also assessing whether Mr Azhar received a fair trial. The trial has come under renewed scrutiny after statements made in court by another graft convict, Gayus Tambunan, who alleged in January that a state prosecutor, Cirus Sinaga, had been involved in a plot to frame Mr Azhar. Two other KPK commissioners, Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Rianto, were also suspended in 2009 after being framed by senior police, prosecutors and corruption suspects working in collusion. Both have since been reinstated.