Thou­sands of pro­test­ers gath­ered in cities across Indone­sia to protest cor­rup­tion within the nation’s government.

Alle­ga­tions of the cor­rup­tion cen­ter around an eco­nomic stim­u­lus pack­age the gov­ern­ment issued dur­ing the recent global reces­sion. There are accu­sa­tions that much of the stim­u­lus money lined gov­ern­ment official’s pock­ets or their friends at banks.

From CNN World, writer Kathy Quiano gives us more details on the corruption.

The protests come amid a grow­ing pub­lic dis­sat­is­fac­tion over inves­ti­ga­tions into a bailout of Indonesia’s Cen­tury Bank.

The con­tro­versy began when crit­ics accused Pres­i­dent Susilo Bam­bang Yud­hoy­ono and some of his polit­i­cal allies of ben­e­fit­ing from the bailout money. The $710 mil­lion gov­ern­ment bailout occurred in Novem­ber 2008.

In the South Sulawesi cap­i­tal of Makas­sar, where protests are typ­i­cally more vio­lent, hun­dreds of demon­stra­tors called for the res­ig­na­tion of Indone­sian Vice Pres­i­dent and for­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Boe­diono and Coor­di­nat­ing Min­is­ter for Eco­nomic Affairs Sri Mulyani.

Both were blamed for key roles in the bailout.

In Jakarta, pro­test­ers chanted: “Down with cor­rup­tors” and other slo­gans. One group burned a pic­ture of Boediono.

“We know that cor­rup­tion is the source of stu­pid­ity, poverty and social imbal­ance,” pro­tester Fad­jroel Rach­man said. “We are expect­ing the world to bring down all the cor­rup­tors as well as Indone­sia. Who­ever the cor­rup­tor is, we have to take them down. If you’re not a cor­rup­tor, there is no rea­son for you to be afraid.”

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