Kuala Lumpur is agog with speculation about whether Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who came out of retirement to hand the Barisan Nasional coalition its first loss in six decades, will bid adieu after hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting next fall. He turns 94 on July 10 and has an agreement to hand over at an unspecified date to former deputy Anwar Ibrahim, whom he jailed in 1998 on sodomy charges. But when political analysts began to suggest that Azmin Ali, the deputy president of Anwar’s party, was positioning himself as Mahathir’s preferred successor, videos emerged purporting to show Azmin and another man engaged in sexual acts, a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison under Malaysia’s colonial-era sodomy laws.
(July 8): One year after a historic regime change, Malaysia’s politics remain a combustible cocktail of sleaze and power lust. At least the economy is on the right track, even if it’s nowhere close to fulfilling its potential.
Over the coming years, Malaysia plans governance improvements at state institutions, a qualitative boost to education and a more direct assault on low incomes and inequality. These three crucial efforts will take time to bear fruit, assuming they can survive the country’s murky politics.
