Image: New Mandala
On 8 February I was part of an expert panel discussing the big issues in Malaysia’s 14th General Elections (GE14), alongside the Merdeka Center’s Ibrahim ‘Ben’ Suffian, Universiti Malaya Professor Edmund Terence Gomez, Malaysia Muda convener and lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, and New Mandala Contributing Editor Kean Wong. The discussion was recorded in Kuala Lumpur and was published today on the excellent New Mandala website. The audio recording of the full discussion is available here.
GE14: the polls, the money, the stakes
As Malaysians head to the 14th General Elections (GE14), the stakes have seldom been higher. The nature of the nation is now fiercely contested. While many Malaysians see the GE14 election season as another fraught debate over the core economic issues of the cost of living, inflation, and health and education infrastructure, there are also renewed fissures over the roles of religion and culture in determining Malaysia in the 21st century. And all of these issues arising at a time of great uncertainty in the region, as China rises and the United States retreats.