The KPK is facing renewed threats to its independence and effectiveness as a result of proposed revisions to anti-corruption laws. The justice and human rights minister, Patrialis Akbar, has proposed revisions to the 1999 corruption law that could compromise the commission's ability to prosecute its own cases and to seek proportional punishment for those convicted of corruption. Meanwhile, revisions to the 2003 law establishing the KPK, currently under consideration in the DPR, would weaken the commission's ability to gather evidence through wire-tapping-a crucial means of building cases. A local anti-corruption watchdog, Indonesia Corruption Watch, has warned that the proposed revisions would severely weaken efforts to combat graft.

Many powerful interests are threatened by the KPK's investigations. In March the commission arrested a senior official at the transport ministry, Soemino Eko Widodo Saputro, in relation to allegations that he marked up the shipping costs for railway carriages imported to Indonesia in 2006-07. Mr Saputro has said previously that he was acting on the instructions of Mr Rajasa, who at the time served as the transport minister. As the PAN chairman, Mr Rajasa is the party superior of Mr Akbar, who is preparing the amendments to the 1999 law on corrupt crimes. Meanwhile, the DPR's moves to revise the 2003 law on the KPK follows the arrest by the commission of 25 past and present legislators from Golkar, the PDI-P and the PPP on charges of accepting bribes in exchange for approving the appointment of Miranda Goeltom as a senior deputy governor of Bank Indonesia (BI, the central bank) in 2004. The commission successfully prosecuted a further four politicians in relation to the case in 2010.