Corruption and Political Dynasties in East Kalimantan

Abstract

Political dynasties in East Kalimantan have shown significant developments in the last decade. A number of factors have encouraged political dynasties to flourish in East Kalimantan: Firstly, undemocratic political party institutions; Secondly, political parties’ lack of capacity to develop organizational financial independence; Thirdly, regulatory factors that allow political dynastic consolidation; Fourthly, extremely low political awareness among the floating mass of voters; and Fifthly, the persistent strong feudal culture in our societal order. So, how does corruption relate to political dynasties?

Theoretically, relationships between corruption and political dynasties tend to be ambiguous. On the one hand, political dynasties are strongly influenced by a ‘reputation building incentive’, aimed at building a favorable public image. But on the other hand, political dynasties are also strongly influenced by a ‘stockpiling-wealth incentive’. This shows their true greedy nature through uncontrolled accumulation of wealth, which is part of their strategy for preserving hereditary power from one generation to the next. It is this tendency towards uncontrolled wealth accumulation that propagates a corrupt nature. Despite their best reputation building efforts, this true, corrupt nature is hard to conceal.