One will know that a country's extractive political institution is at its worst state when a judge, that supposedly upholds the constitution, actually violates it. Just last month, Indonesia's Constitutional Court chief justice, Akil Mochtar was arrested for allegedly accepting a bribery over an election dispute case in Central Kalimantan - one of the provinces in Indonesia.
This sheds a negative light onto the legal institution and surely shows how prevalent and deeply rooted extractive political institution in Indonesia is. This also brings into question the commitment and possibility of Indonesia in moving forward to eradicate corruption and extractive institutions in the future since the political leaders (the high-ranking judge in this case), whose responsibility is to put an end in corruption, are exactly the ones who actually commit the crime.
This story seems to reflect a country that is making efforts towards becoming more inclusive. The bribe was concerning “a dispute surrounding the election for the district head of Gunung Mas in Central Kalimantan.” In a very exclusive society, there wouldn’t even be disputes over an election; the elites would pass laws to insulate elections from the public, or conspire and fix the election results to reflect what they want to happen. Despite that “chronic corruption remains a major brake on investment in Indonesia,” the arrest of this high-ranking judge is indicative of a system that is trying to hold politicians responsible for corruption. The actions of the Corruption Eradication Commission definitely seem to indicate that Indonesia is developing and attempting to maintain inclusive institutions.
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