From yesterday’s last presentation and discussion session, we learnt more about mobilising people: connecting agents of change. Through Mrs. Eva Kusuma Sundari, MP, we were getting familiar with Public Account Committee at the DPR-RI. With its establishment, the committee has a duty fo follow up on executive audit report in terms of monitoring the use of state finances to the implementation of the transparency and accountability of state finances.

The second presenter, Mrs. Natalia Soebagjo from Transparency International Indonesia reminded us that there are more to TI than just Corruption Perception Index. Messages from the 15th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) held in Brazil addressed two out of five challenges ahead and still relevant, i.e. impunity and political transitions.

While from the third presenter, Mr. Kornelius Purba from The Jakarta Post, we understood the reason for gloomy thought on democracy in Indonesia from his description on how democracy does not contribute much to people’s livelihood. Although there are some skepticism on our future in facing the 2014 General Election, there are still good people in Indonesia so there is still hope for democracy and good practices in running the country.

The final remark on yesterday’s session brings us to today’s presentation and discussion that will discuss the Integrity in Electoral System, Political Party Accountability. This will also be an interesting session since we are going to have Mr. Andrew Ellis from International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance  (IIDEA). We shall also learn from Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia’s presenters on their democratic reforms.

To sum up all constructive contributions to various subjects related to corrupt-free Southeast Asia, it is important to identify issues that are of particular importance to our region and follow up actions on those issues. For those reasons, today’s last session will try to emphasizes the key issues related to the fight against corruption which have been discussed during the assembly and put it in form of Medan Declaration.