Almost anything in the real world that works and is not dysfunctional is built on hierarchies. Where hierarchies are not explicitly spelled out they are implicit and without accountability - "some animals are more equal than others".
How to promote on merit and not nepotism or corruption is the hard problem.
Thinking they can be separated long term is very naive.
First, competence itself is subjective and hard to measure, especially for the very broad task of language design and stewardship. Which skills and credentials are considered most relevant and who's judging them is already "political" (e.g. do "hackers" get stuff done, or are winging it? Is someone with a PhD in PLT the most qualified, or an ivory-tower academic?)
Then there are human factors. Programmers aren't deterministic stateless coffee2code transformers.
Some people will dislike other people, for a broad range of reasons that may be valid or not, and that will affect their judgement. Also many projects and companies have to deal with "asshole geniuses". It's very "political" to decide whether you kick out someone who writes good code, but scares away other contributors.
"Corporate politics" is not thing set up on purpose, but it's a meta-game that emerges even in organizations that are supposed to be purely meritocratic. There are people who will consciously play this game, and have an advantage over people who naively think the game doesn't exist (I'm not endorsing it, but saying it's a phenomenon that orgs need to be aware of and actively deal with instead of declaring they're apolitical).
How to promote on merit and not nepotism or corruption is the hard problem.