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Alawmaker who resigned over allegations that he watched a pornographic video during a plenary session has been praised by his party for setting a good example.

Arifinto, from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), announced his resignation on Monday after being photographed last Friday viewing the pornographic material on his tablet computer during a plenary session of the House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, Mustafa Kamal, the PKS chairman at the House, said Arifinto’s resignation highlighted his sense of responsibility to the public.

“Arifinto has set a good example for other party members and all officials in the administration,” he said, adding the decision to resign rather than face an ethics tribunal was the brave choice.

Mustafa said this show of accountability was a step toward “building a new political culture” in the country.

House Speaker Marzuki Alie, from the ruling Democratic Party, agreed that instilling a sense of shame among misbehaving public officials was a good idea, but cautioned against rushing to judge those embroiled in controversies.

He said anyone suspected of moral or ethical infringements should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

“Someone could be suspected of being guilty of something, but that wouldn’t mean the suspicions were necessarily true,” Marzuki said.

“If someone is pressured to resign and they eventually cave in, what happens if later on they are proved to be innocent?”

He cited the case of Mukhamad Misbakhun, also from the PKS, who was convicted last November by the Central Jakarta District Court of falsifying documents while serving as a commissioner for Selalang Prima Internasional in order to obtain a $22.5 million line of credit from the troubled Bank Century.

He was sentenced to a year in jail, and upon appeal to a higher court had his sentence doubled. Still, Marzuki cautioned against jumping to conclusions until a final decision in the case was delivered by the Supreme Court.

However, he said that in cases where legislators faced criminal charges and were automatically suspended from their posts, they should rescind all rights to their salaries and other benefits.

“In this case, the role of the House Ethics Council becomes important,” Marzuki said.

Ali Maschan Moesa, an Ethics Council member from the National Awakening Party (PKB), said that in Arifinto’s case, it appeared he had been pressured by his party to resign.

He added that with a new ethics code in place for the House, the council could now work faster to clear the backlog of complaints lodged against a slew of legislators in various cases.

Yunarto Wijaya, a political analyst with Charta Politika, said the key to keeping politicians in line was a working system of internal controls within their parties, something many parties currently lacked.

He said that while Arifinto should be lauded for resigning in the wake of the scandal, it was taking it a step too far to say he was a model party member. Resigning over a suspected ethical breach is often implicit confirmation of the breach itself, Yunarto said.

“And we didn’t hear anything from Arifinto about it being his fault,” he said.

“We should also look at this case a bit closer: On the day after the plenary session, Arifinto clarified his conduct, but then he resigned.”

Yunarto said that rather than taking a moral stance and admitting to watching the video before announcing his resignation, Arifinto had instead resigned merely to save his party further embarrassment.

This is why it is important for political parties to have control systems in place to evaluate and punish members found in breach of ethical or moral standards, he said.