Tag Archives: Malaysia

The ‘cari makan’ or a rent-seeking political culture may be the hardest thing to reform in Malaysia, even under a reformist government. And human nature will make this almost impossible to do.

Why Malaysia's voters delivered a momentous political upset in yesterday's election, as seen from the ground.

No Malaysian election campaign is complete without these highlights of food, flags and swag, as the GE14 season enters its final days.

Malaysia's GE14 marks the end of Malaysian Chinese politics after 60 years of dwindling and divisive outcomes, as its modern patron UMNO itself struggles to survive.

Electoral changes recently rammed through parliament can mean winning power at GE14 with just 16.5% of the popular vote. But would such elections confer the legitimacy to rule?

Can former minister and prime minister Najb Razak's ‘good friend’ Shafie Apdal sweep out Sabah's incumbents at GE14, and end up delivering power to Mahathir's opposition?

Reform-minded Malaysians are fatigued after two missed opportunities since 2008, with today's centrifugal politics generating even more social tensions. Not even Dr Mahathir’s surprise (re)emergence can mend those fractures, as Malaysians dream of the First World but still struggle in the Third as inequality worsens.

Reforming Bumiputera policy is a colossal project both rival coalitions are reluctant to tackle. Yet the political consensus, while striving to transcend ethnic policies in rhetoric, misconstrues and ignores the embedded preferential regime.

Sabah needs leaders and statesmen determined to solve its long overdue need for autonomy, without fear of injuring a federal government's pride.

Bersih’s legal strategy to check on electoral integrity has exposed and revealed much about the redelineation process, testing the relationships between Malaysia’s political institutions.

The resurgence of ‘old’ Mahathir against the Najib coalition has been matched with the ‘new’, the cheap smartphone.

As Malaysia rushes to its GE14 on 9 May, the new anti-fake news law is primed against the state's critics, emboldening speech vigilantism by outsourced censors linked to the ruling UMNO party.