Anwar defeated his strongest rival in the race, and predecessor, Arief Hidayat, by a five-to-four vote after three rounds of voting. Arief is a two-time House appointee, who, during his tenure as chief justice, was mired in controversy and found to have committed ethics violations on two occasions.

The voting came after the bench, in a meeting held behind closed doors earlier that day, failed to reach consensus on who should become the new chief justice and deputy justice.

Anwar was appointed as a Constitutional Court justice by the Supreme Court in 2011. In 2015, he was elected as the court's deputy chief justice and was reelected for the second time in 2016.

The 66-year-old judge became the court’s chief justice in 2018. He was originally set to serve in the position until October 2020, but about a month before his term was to end, the House of Representatives revised the Constitutional Court Law to increase the term limit for its justices, automatically extending Anwar's tenure as chief justice to 2026.

In June of last year, however, the court ruled in favor of plaintiffs who challenged the latest version of Constitutional Court Law, revoking a provision that allowed chief justices to hold onto their positions for the length of their terms without being periodically reelected. The court also ordered the nine-member bench to elect a new chief justice and deputy chief justice before March 20 of this year.

New deputy

Also on Wednesday, five of nine justices voted for Saldi Isra, a Jokowi appointee who joined the bench in 2017 and a former law professor and activist, as deputy chief justice. Anwar and Saldi are scheduled to take their oaths of office before the court on Monday and are set to serve until 2028, according to the latest version of the Constitutional Court Law.

The deputy chief justice position had been left vacant following the highly controversial removal of Saldi's predecessor Aswanto by the House in September of last year.

Lawmakers removed Aswanto – who was one of the three House-appointed justices on the bench – on the grounds that he was not doing enough to represent the interests of the legislative body that had nominated him. Even though the House does not have the legal authority to remove a justice, President Jokowi gave a nod to Aswanto’s dismissal.

Aswanto’s removal was widely seen as being politically motivated. The former justice was notable for his role in the court’s decision to declare Jokowi’s flagship 2020 Job Creation Law “conditionally unconstitutional”.

Losing trust

Established in 2001 as a guardian of the Constitution and Indonesian democracy, the Constitutional Court had served for years as a reliable judicial institution keeping the powers of the executive and legislature in check.

But a series of political maneuvers by the House in recent years, particularly Aswanto’s removal, as well an ongoing ethics probe into irregularities in the court’s decision late last year that upheld his dismissal, have undercut public trust in the court.

Lawmakers are currently planning another controversial revision to the Constitutional Court Law that would allow the House, the president and the Supreme Court to evaluate every five years, or at any time as they deem necessary, each of the three sitting justices they appoint.

Critics have called on Anwar to step down to avoid potential conflicts of interest following his marriage to Jokowi's sister, Idayati, in May of last year.

The court is currently handling judicial reviews of alleged violations of the Constitution by policymakers, including with regard to the Criminal Code and the Job Creation Law, and may face election disputes after next year’s general election.

It is also currently reviewing a controversial petition filed by an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) member and several other plaintiffs that seeks to restore a closed-list system for the legislative elections.