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Moments before naming lawmaker Angelina Sondakh as a suspect in a high-profile graft case, Abraham Samad, chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission, joked with journalists at his press conference last Friday.

Appearing in high spirits, Abraham asked journalists to be patient as he prepared to make the announcement: “The new suspect is A.S., Abraham Samad.” He giggled at his own joke, followed by the journalists’ roars of laughter.

Humor has been held in high regard by people all over the world since time immemorial. It rightly occupies a primary place in many great works of literature. Humor also serves to prove a point and entertains people when it is used at the right time and place.

But for a serious occasion, one concerning a major corruption case that has outraged millions of Indonesians and where a suspect may face up to 20 years in jail and Rp 350 million ($39,000) in fines, the joking by the chairman of the commission known as the KPK was considered by many as out of place.

Even if the joke was just an expression of Abraham’s confidence about upholding justice — that everyone is equal before the law — or a demonstration of his courage to take on Angelina, a politician from the ruling Democratic Party, it still looked out of place.

It would have been far wiser if Abraham had made the announcement in a more subdued and elegant manner, considering that he is the respected chairman of an organization entrusted by both the people and the government to fight public enemy No. 1 enemy: corruption.

It is still fresh in our minds what Abraham said during the vetting process at the House of Representatives late last year. He criticized KPK officials for appearing in television interviews and looking like celebrities craving popularity, and making statements that could hamper investigations by the antigraft body.

“The media should be covering the people who work at the KPK,” he said, “it should be covering its work and findings.”

It is true that after assuming the KPK chairmanship, Abraham wasted little time in naming two major suspects. Before Angelina, he named Miranda Goeltom, the former senior deputy governor of Bank Indonesia, a suspect in a major bribery scandal over her appointment to the central bank post in 2004.

But it is also true that in both instances, the naming of the suspects was done by Abraham alone, without the presence of the antigraft body’s four deputy chairmen. It is KPK tradition, or at least was, to decide to take on corruption investigations and name suspects collectively, for reasons of accountability and transparency.

This break from tradition has caught people’s attention. A number of lawmakers and observers have speculated about the possibility of an internal conflicts among the KPK leadership. But Busyro Muqoddas, the former KPK chairman and currently one of its deputies, dismissed the speculation in a television interview, calling it “rubbish” and baseless.

To allay any public doubt about the cohesiveness of the KPK leadership, it is important for them to jointly attend the news conference the next time that they name new suspects or announce any new findings from the many cases they have yet to solve.

The public has placed great trust in Abraham, who established himself as a real corruption fighter in his hometown, Makassar, and his deputies, and does not wish to see any cracks in the KPK teamwork.

There is certainly no shortage of major cases that still require the attention of the KPK. It has yet to unravel the mystery of the person or persons who provided the Rp 24 billion to bribe lawmakers to vote for Miranda. Nor has it resolved the protracted Bank Century case said to have cost the country Rp 6.7 trillion, and it still has to go after the other guilty parties in the corruption case related to the construction of an athletes’ village for last year’s SEA Games.

Abraham’s solemn promise that he would resign from the KPK if he could not resolve these three big cases in a year’s time still rings in the public’s ears.

Oei Eng Goan, a former lecturer at National University (UNAS) in Jakarta, is a freelance journalist.