When former education minister Nadiem Makarim stood before the corruption court and invoked former president Joko Widodo, the statement was more than a personal defense. It was a political signal. By asserting that the controversial Chromebook procurement stemmed from a presidential mandate to accelerate digital education, Nadiem effectively shifted the spotlight from ministerial discretion to the highest office in the country.

As of January 2, 2026, Indonesia officially enacted the new Criminal Code (KUHP) and the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP). While intended to modernize long-outdated legal frameworks, the reforms have evidently provoked public backlash, particularly due to concerns over civil rights and procedural safeguards.

It should have been a straightforward principle: when the nation’s premier anti-corruption institution halts the investigation of a Rp 2.7 trillion mining scandal, the public deserves to know—promptly, transparently, and with full legal justification. Instead, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chose silence. For one full year, the agency kept quiet about the fact that it had already issued a Surat Perintah Penghentian Penyidikan (SP3) in December 2024. Only now, a year later, does Indonesia learn that the case has been buried.

Indonesia deserves seriousness when corruption is prosecuted. Serious facts. Serious data. Serious accountability. Yet in the high-profile Chromebook corruption trial involving former education minister Nadiem Makarim, the nation has been fed something else: a dramatic, emotionally charged, but scientifically hollow claim that Indonesian children allegedly have an average IQ of 78, and that the failed Chromebook program reflects — or even contributes to — such intellectual decline.

The corruption scandal engulfing Bekasi Regent Ade Kuswara Kunang and his father is not simply another depressing entry in Indonesia’s catalogue of graft. It is a brutal reminder that regional democracy has been hijacked by family power networks, patronage politics, and the normalization of corruption as a governing method. What makes this worse than ordinary abuse of power is not only the scale of alleged theft — but the moral collapse it exposes.

The government’s decision to regulate the placement of active police officers in civilian posts through a forthcoming Government Regulation (PP) may look like a neat administrative adjustment. In reality, it is a political and legal corrective move forced by the controversy of Perpol 10/2025 — a regulation that triggered public backlash, constitutional debates, and raised serious concerns about Indonesia’s democratic trajectory.

Two executives of state aluminium producer INALUM, member of MIND ID (holding company for state mining firms, Freeport Indonesia and Vale Indonesia), have been named suspects in corruption case related to sales of aluminium in the period of 2018-2024. Too little too late for recovery of losses?

Some nickel associations have reportedly written a letter to President Prabowo Subianto complaining about hefty administrative fines charged to those using forest area without proper permits. 

The House of Representatives’ recent passage of the Penal Adjustment Law — a sweeping harmonization effort ahead of the full implementation of the new Criminal Code (KUHP) in January 2026 — has been framed as a historic step toward a more modern, coherent, and humane criminal justice system. On paper, the law promises to eliminate archaic punishments, streamline inconsistencies across hundreds of sectoral statutes, and prevent overcriminalization by limiting the use of imprisonment for minor offenses.