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Jakarta. A former lawmaker turned whistle-blower said on Thursday that senior officials of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle should have been named suspects in a bribery scandal over a high-level central bank appointment in 2004.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Wednesday named 26 former and current lawmakers as suspects in a bribery scandal surrounding the appointment of economist Miranda Goeltom as Bank Indonesia senior deputy governor.

The suspects are alleged to have accepted between Rp 250 million and Rp 1.45 billion ($28,000 and $160,000) to vote for Miranda.

At least 14 of the suspects are former or current Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmakers.

“Senior PDI-P party officials masterminded the whole thing,” said Agus Condro Prayitno, a former PDI-P lawmaker who first reported the alleged bribes to the KPK in 2008.

“Of course the KPK’s decision has upset them [senior PDI-P officials]. PDI-P is unlike any other party. We cannot even tie our shoelaces without permission from senior officials,” he said.

“The instruction to take the money and vote for Miranda Goeltom came from Tjahjo Kumolo and Panda Nababan, and no one disagreed.”

Tjahjo was the chairman of the PDI-P faction in the House of Representatives when the alleged bribes occurred, and Panda was the faction secretary.

Panda was among the suspects named on Wednesday. They could all be charged with violating articles 5 and 11 of the 1999 Anti-Corruption Law, which carries a maximum jail term of five years.

“I’m glad Panda was named a suspect, but how come other senior officials weren’t named?” Agus said.

Agus approached the KPK in 2008 and said he had received 10 traveler’s checks, each worth Rp 50 million.

The antigraft agency said the checks had been purchased by First Mujur Plantation, a subsidiary of the Artha Graha group, which is owned by tycoon Tommy Winata.

The KPK said First Mujur had purchased another 470 traveler’s checks, worth a total of Rp 24 billion, and that the checks had been cashed by 39 of the 41 lawmakers who had voted for Miranda.

During a hearing at the Anti-Corruption Court in Jakarta this year, officials from First Mujur said they did not know how the checks ended up in the hands of lawmakers.

They said the checks had been purchased to finance a palm oil plantation project.

Golkar Party’s Hamka Yandhu, the PDI-P’s Dudhie Makmun Murod, Endin Soefihara, from the (PPP), and Udju Djuhaeri, from the now defunct police and military faction, have already been jailed for their roles in the case.

The were found to have received Rp 24 billion in traveler’s checks from businesswoman Nunun Nurbaeti Daradjatun, which they channeled to other lawmakers.

Nunun, the wife of Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician Adang Daradjatun, is in Singapore and has ignored repeated summonses from the KPK, claiming she is suffering from a mysterious illness that causes memory loss.

Adnan Topan Husodo, deputy chairman of Indonesia Corruption Watch, said Nunun was the key to unraveling who provided the money for the bribes.

“We think she acted as an intermediary because she doesn’t have any businesses linked to the banking world,” Adnan told the Jakarta Globe.

“She would certainly make the ideal middleman. She knows Miranda personally. She has access to lawmakers. She is also in the palm oil business.”

One of those named as a suspect on Wednesday, former Golkar lawmaker TM Nurlif, is now a sitting member of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).

He faces suspension from the agency after being named a criminal suspect, and automatic dismissal if convicted.

BPK officials could not be reached on Thursday to confirm if Nurlif had been suspended.

PDI-P said it would send a team to KPK headquarters today to discuss why 14 current and former members were named as suspects, and what would happen to them.

The team will include Trimedya Panjaitan, Tjahjo Kumolo, Gayus Lumbuun and M Nurdin.

“We require clarification and a detailed explanation of the process of investigation into this case. We need to get the details on this case’s legal process,” said Tjahjo, the party’s secretary general.

He said PDI-P wanted the agency to explain its decision to name the former and current PDI-P lawmakers as suspects.

“On one hand, we know the KPK hasn’t taken any action against the bribers,” he said.

“Why did they need to make this announcement? We will support the KPK, but we hope it did not do this out of pressure from certain groups.”

Tjahjo added that to his knowledge, all of the former and current PDI-P lawmakers named suspects had returned the money.

Lumbuun, a PDI-P lawmaker on House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, criticized the KPK’s naming of suspects as careless and premature.

He said regulations required that investigations into bribery allegations must begin with the person who offered the bribe, not those who took the money.

“The decision to vote for Miranda was a reached by the PDI-P faction leadership with no outside influence,” he said.

“If the KPK believes lawmakers took money to appoint her, that is completely false. The KPK should investigate the briber first. The KPK should have first announced the name of the briber, before announcing those who allegedly took the bribes.”

However, Trimedya Panjaitan, the PDI-P’s chairman for legal affairs, clarified that the party was not attempting to interfere in the KPK’s investigation.

“For the PDI-P, the case is just one of the risks of being the opposition party, where some groups in power tend to use legal authority to attack it,” he said.

“But we will not change our position as an opposition party. We fully respect the KPK, as mandated by our chairwoman [Megawati Sukarnoputri], who formed it when she was president.”

Meanwhile, a KPK deputy chairman, Muhammad Jasin, said the agency had requested the Directorate General of Immigration at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights to impose a travel ban on all of the suspects.