Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was appointed prime minister on Thursday, the sultan’s palace said, and will be sworn in at 5 p.m. local time.
A general election on Saturday ended in an unprecedented hung parliament with neither of two main alliances, one led by Anwar and the other ex-premier Muhyiddin Yassin, immediately able to secure enough seats in parliament to form a government.
Anwar’s appointment caps a three-decade long journey from heir apparent to a prisoner convicted of sodomy, to longtime opposition leader.
The 75-year-old has time and again been denied the premiership despite getting within striking distance over the years: he was deputy prime minister in the 1990s and the official prime minister-in-waiting in 2018.
In between, he spent nearly a decade in jail for sodomy and corruption in what he says were politically motivated charges aimed at ending his career.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s election uncertainty deepened Tuesday after a political bloc refused to support either reformist leader Anwar Ibrahim or rival Malay nationalist Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister, three days after divisive polls produced no outright winner.
The stalemate put the spotlight on the nation’s ceremonial king, who will have to find a way to resolve the impasse.
Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan, or Alliance of Hope, topped Saturday’s elections with 83 parliamentary seats, but failed to reach the 112 needed for a majority. He has been locked in a battle to form a majority government with former Prime Minister Muhyiddin, whose Malay-centric Perikatan Nasional, or National Alliance, won 72 seats.
Muhyiddin gained an upper hand after securing support of lawmakers from two states on Borneo island but both rivals still need the backing of the long-ruling alliance led by the United Malays National Organization for a majority.
Caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, a senior UMNO official, said the highest-decision making body of UMNO-led Barisan Nasional, or National Front alliance, decided at a meeting Tuesday not to support any group to form a government.
“So far, BN has agreed to remain as the opposition,” he tweeted.
Malaysia’s monarch, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, said the crisis must end. He urged the nation to be patient as he makes his decision.
“We have to move on … we need to move forward for our beloved nation,” he told reporters waiting outside the palace.
Sultan Abdullah earlier asked lawmakers to state their preferred choice for prime minister and coalition by 2 p.m. The king’s role is largely ceremonial but he appoints the person he believes has majority support in Parliament as prime minister.
Muhyiddin’s bloc includes a hard-line Islamic ally, stoking fears of right-wing politics that may deepen racial divides in the multiethnic nation if it comes to power. The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party was the biggest winner with a haul of 49 seats — more than double what it won in 2018. Known as PAS, it touts Sharia, rules three states and is now the single largest party.
His alliance said it has already sent more than 112 sworn oaths by lawmakers to the king. UMNO, however, warned that individual support of its lawmakers without the party’s approval is invalid.
The drama is a replay of the political turmoil in Malaysia that has seen three prime ministers since 2018 polls.
In early 2020, Muhyiddin abandoned Anwar’s ruling alliance, causing its collapse, and joined hands with UMNO to form a new government.
Sultan Abdullah at the time requested written oaths from all 222 lawmakers and later interviewed them separately before picking Muhyiddin as prime minister. But his government was beset by internal rivalries and Muhyiddin resigned after 17 months. For a second time, the monarch sought written statements from lawmakers before appointing UMNO’s Ismail Sabri Yaakob as the new leader.
Ismail called for snap polls at the behest of UMNO leaders as the party was convinced it could make a strong comeback amid a fragmented opposition. Instead, ethnic majority Malays, fed up with corruption and infighting in the party, opted for Muhyiddin’s bloc.
Many rural Malays, who form two-thirds of Malaysia’s 33 million people — which includes large minorities of ethnic Chinese and Indians — also fear they may lose their rights with greater pluralism under Anwar’s multiethnic alliance.
Malaysia was facing a hung parliament for the first time in its history as support for a conservative Islamic alliance prevented major coalitions from winning a simple majority in a general election.
Without a clear winner, political uncertainty could persist as Malaysia faces slowing economic growth and rising inflation. It has had three prime ministers in as many years.
Failure by the main parties to win a majority means a combination of them would have to build a majority alliance to form a government. Malaysia’s constitutional monarch may also get involved, as he has the power to appoint as Prime Minister a lawmaker whom he believes can command a majority.
Longtime opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition won the most seats in Saturday’s general election, results from the Election Commission showed.
The biggest surprise came from former premier Muhyiddin Yassin who led his Perikatan Nasional bloc to a strong showing, pulling support from the incumbent government’s traditional strongholds.
Muhyiddin’s alliance includes a Malay-centric conservative party and an Islamist party that has touted shariah or Islamic law. Race and religion are divisive issues in Malaysia, where the Muslim ethnic-Malay population make up the majority and ethnic Chinese and Indians the minorities.
Both Anwar and Muhyiddin claimed to have the support to form government, though they did not disclose which parties they had allied with.
Muhyiddin said he hoped to finish discussions by Sunday afternoon. His alliance is a junior partner in incumbent Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s ruling coalition and could work with them again.
Anwar said he would submit a letter to Malaysia’s King Al-Sultan Abdullah detailing his support.
If Anwar clinches the top job, it would cap a remarkable journey for a politician who, in 25 years, went from heir apparent, to the premiership, to a prisoner convicted of sodomy to the country’s leading opposition figure.
Since 2015, Malaysian politics has been overshadowed by the 1MDB corruption scandal, which saw billions of dollars of taxpayers money embezzled out of the country. It brought down former prime minister, Najib Razak, who is now serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption.
Three prime ministers have governed the Southeast Asian country since a febrile election with a record turnout was fought four years ago on the key issue of corruption.
Malaysia has 222 parliamentary seats but polls were held only for 220 on Saturday.
The Election Commission said Anwar’s multi-ethnic Pakatan Harapan coalition won a total of 82 seats, while Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional alliance won 73 seats. Ismail’s Barisan coalition got 30. One seat was unannounced as of 2100 GMT.
“The key takeaway from this election is that Perikatan has successfully disrupted the two party system,” said Adib Zalkapli, a director with political consultancy Bower Group Asia.
Barisan and Pakatan have long been Malaysia’s main blocs.
Barisan said it accepted the people’s decision, but stopped short of conceding defeat. The coalition said in a statement it remains committed to forming a stable government.
Veteran leader Mahathir Mohamad meanwhile was dealt his first election defeat in 53 years in a blow that could mark the end of a seven-decade political career, losing his seat to Muhyiddin’s alliance.
A record number of Malaysians voted on Saturday, hoping to end a spate of political uncertainty that has resulted in three prime ministers amidst uncertain economic times and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The political landscape has been rocky since Barisan lost the 2018 election after governing for 60 years from independence.
Anwar made his name as a student activist in various Muslim youth groups in Kuala Lumpur in the late 1960s, as the country reeled from the protracted Communist insurgency of the Malayan Emergency.
Arrested in 1974 in student protests against rural poverty, Anwar was sentenced to 20 months in jail. Despite his firebrand reputation, he later confounded liberal supporters in 1982 by joining the conservative United Malays National Organization (UMNO) led by Mahathir.
The freed politician was the heir apparent to then-premier Mahathir until 1998, when he was sacked and charged for corruption and sodomy. He was found guilty the following year, a ruling that led to mass street demonstrations.
The sodomy conviction was overturned, but the corruption verdict was never lifted, barring him from running for political post until a decade later.
In 2008, once his ban on political participation was lifted, he was hit with further sodomy charges.
Following an appeal of the acquittal of those charges he was convicted again and jailed in 2015. Human rights groups were highly critical when the conviction was upheld, calling it politically motivated – a claim the government denied.
Anwar was released from prison in 2018 after joining with old foe Mahathir and Muhyiddin to defeat Barisan for the first time in Malaysia’s history, amid public anger at the government over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal.
That coalition collapsed after 22 months in power due to infighting over a promise by Mahathir to hand the premiership to Anwar. Muhyiddin briefly became premier, but his administration collapsed last year, paving the way for Barisan’s return to power with Ismail at the helm.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has oozed a casual resentment when describing the “irreversible and even tectonic changes” that he says have led the West to become a spent force in the world.
“Western countries are striving to maintain a former world order that is beneficial only to them,” he told attendees at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok in September.
Those days were numbered, he insisted.
The future was in the “dynamic, promising countries and regions of the world, primarily the Asia Pacific region”, he said. Putin was followed on the podium by Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing – the symbolism was not lost on close observers of regional politics.
This week Putin was invited to attend the Group of 20 meeting, which opens on Tuesday on the Indonesian island of Bali. It appeared to be the perfect venue for him to double down on his overtures to the Asia Pacific, particularly in Southeast Asia — one of the world’s most economically dynamic regions.
But it was not to be.
Putin skipped his moment in the Balinese sun due to undefined “scheduling” reasons.
With Putin a no-show, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a captive audience when he addressed the summit virtually on Tuesday after his invitation to attend by the summit’s host, Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Putin’s absence from the G20 also undercuts “talk of a Russian pivot to Asia”, wrote Susannah Patton of the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank.
Now with the Russian army retreating in parts of Ukraine and international sanctions biting deeply into Russia’s economy, some old friends in Southeast Asia appear to be avoiding direct eye contact as Putin looks east. Others are actively looking the other way, and Myanmar seems to be Moscow’s last true friend in the region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Myanmar’s Senior General Min Aung Hlaing meet at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, in September 2022 [File: Valery Sharifulin/Sputnik/Kremlin pool via AP]
Hanoi, in particular, remembers Russian support during the war against the US-backed regime in South Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s — a war from which it emerged victorious in 1975.
Vietnam and Laos abstained from UN resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the annexation of Ukrainian territory, and voted against suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
In Monday’s vote on a resolution requiring Russia to pay reparations for the damage caused to Ukraine, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were among the 73 members of the assembly that abstained. Among countries in the region, only Singapore and the Philippines backed the resolution.
Vietnamese communist soldiers moving forward under covering fire from a heavy machine gun during the Vietnam War, circa 1968 [File: Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]
Vietnam’s decision to abstain at the UN is perfectly legal, argued Huynh Tam Sang, a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities. But it is also “morally questionable” as Vietnam had failed to defend the “principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity”, he writes. That is no small oversight for a country whose successful liberation struggles against foreign occupiers — China, France, and the United States — is a defining national motif.
“Vietnam’s move is aimed at avoiding criticism and potential retaliation from Moscow,” said Huynh Tam Sang, pointing out the material behind the fraternal: trade links between Hanoi and Moscow amounted to almost $2.5bn in the first eight months of this year, and Russia is a primary investor in Vietnam’s oil and gas sectors.
Russia is also Vietnam’s largest arms supplier.
“It is not in Vietnam’s interests for Russia to be weakened,” Carlyle A Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales Canberra, told Al Jazeera in a recent interview.
Historical threads
Vietnam’s support for Russia needs to be understood in terms of Hanoi’s traditionally fraught relationship with neighbouring China. Vietnam fought its own border war with China in 1979 and has often relied on its relations with Moscow as a counterweight to pressure from its historic rival.
Neighbouring Cambodia, however, with its Putin-esque authoritarian leader Hun Sen who has held power for 37 years, has shown surprising insubordination to its former Soviet-era aid donor and political supporter.
The then Soviet Union was one of the earliest countries to help rebuild Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge regime when the government in Phnom Penh — installed by Vietnam — faced near-total Western sanctions. One of Phnom Penh’s most popular markets is still known as the “Russian Market” owing to the large population of Russian diplomats and technical assistants from Soviet states who frequented its stalls during the 1980s.
Just last year, Hun Sen received Russia’s Order of Friendship medal.
Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen during their meeting at the ASEAN-Russia summit, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, in 2016 [File: Alexander Zemlianichenko, pool/AP Photo]
But that has not prevented the Cambodian leader from taking a “surprisingly hard-line stand” against Moscow over the war in Ukraine, according to Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.
Hun Sen has not just called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine an “act of aggression”, but he has also questioned Russia’s ability to emerge victorious, and expressed a willingness to take in Ukrainian refugees, Storey notes.
Hun Sen’s pro-Ukraine stance appeared to prompt the Russian ambassador to remind him in a tweet that it was Moscow who came to Cambodia’s assistance “in the most difficult period in its history” following the Khmer Rouge.
📌 Discussed both history and prospects of 🇷🇺🇰🇭 relations at the online conference within the project “#Russia in the South Seas”. Our two nations have always maintained friendly relations. It was Moscow that assisted Phnom Penh in the most difficult period in its history. pic.twitter.com/GMpm9HUOBD
Phnom Penh has been a cosponsor of condemnatory UN resolutions on Russia’s invasion — although it has abstained on some Ukraine-related votes — and more recently, Hun Sen invited Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to address by video link last weekend’s summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Phnom Penh. The invitation was apparently torpedoed by the need for consensus among the ASEAN leaders.
Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have been more cautious in their public pronouncements on the war, with G20 host Indonesia careful to preserve its traditional non-aligned stance.
But, Indonesia’s Widodo did visit Kyiv first and Moscow the next day in late June when he went to discuss the global food crisis with Zelenskyy and Putin, and presumably extend personal invitations to the Bali summit.
Russian market for arms
Russia’s arms industry is the “single largest supplier of major weaponry to Southeast Asia”, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Russia accounted for more than a quarter of all major weapons deliveries to the region over the past 20 years, according to SIPRI, and when Moscow cannot sell its weapons for hard cash, it has been willing to do barter deals or provide loans instead.
The Indonesian government planned to buy 11 Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 fighter aircraft from Russia in a deal that involved payment of half the cost with the equivalent in agricultural and other produce, according to reports.
In the Philippines, Russia said in 2018 that it was “more than willing” to provide a soft loan so that Manila could buy its first-ever — but Russian-built — submarine, the country’s Philippine News Agency reported.
As SIPRI points out, sales of Russian weaponry to Southeast Asia are “an important element of Russia’s total export income and essential to maintaining the economic viability of the Russian arms industry”.
But with US sanctions imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election, some regional governments have already begun to move away from Russia.
Manila did not buy the Russian submarine, and Jakarta announced in December that the Sukhoi fighter deal was dead.
Now, with a plethora of Ukraine war-related sanctions awaiting those dealing with Moscow, Russia’s export arms industry looks set to feel the collateral damage of Putin’s Ukraine invasion.
The government of Marcos Jr’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, had signed the deal with Russia in November 2021. But even Duterte wanted to put distance between himself and Putin, whom he had once described as his idol, after the Ukraine invasion.
“I’ve long told you Filipinos that I really kill. But I kill criminals, I don’t kill children and the elderly,” he said, comparing his brutality to that of Putin in Ukraine.
“We’re in two different worlds,” he added.
’21st-century imperialism’
The Southeast Asia outlier is military-ruled Myanmar, which has thrown its full support behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Already warm relations between Russia and Myanmar have deepened further since the invasion of Ukraine and last year’s coup by the military that toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
As the International Crisis Group notes, the Myanmar military has positioned itself as “Russia’s most uncritical post-invasion partner in Asia”, and Russia has backed the military regime in terms of providing international diplomatic cover and advanced weaponry.
Ian Storey of the ISEAS sees three factors at work: “Diplomatic validation, arms sales and energy cooperation.”
Military leader Min Aung Hlaing has declared Russia to be Myanmar’s “forever friend”, in comparison with China being described merely as a “close friend”, as Storey notes.
Similar to Vietnam, Myanmar’s military also needs Russia as an alternate supplier of weapons and a counterweight to China. Myanmar announced in September it would buy Russian oil and pay in roubles.
But the Russia-Myanmar relationship is more than an odious alliance, it is also a timebomb for ASEAN.
Storey notes that Moscow’s arms shipments are driving the Myanmar regime’s ability to wage a sustained war against its population and armed ethnic groups, which undermines the potential for peace talks and a negotiated settlement, which ASEAN wants to see achieved.
In this image taken from drone video provided by Free Burma Rangers, black smoke rises from burning buildings in Waraisuplia village in Kayah State, Myanmar, in February 2022, where the military targeted civilians in air and ground attacks [Free Burma Rangers via AP]
Gregory Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, said Southeast Asia’s relationship with Russia is complex.
Russia does, traditionally, hold appeal for those with anti-Western sentiment in the region, and Putin’s hyper-masculine image chimes in a region with a history of personalist, strongman politics.
Countries in the region “look and see a resurgent Russian empire, and that this is imperialism in the 21st Century,” Poling said.
That sentiment was articulated in a speech by Singapore’s foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, condemning Russia’s invasion and announcing sanctions on Moscow in February, Poling said.
“Ukraine is much smaller than Russia, but it is much bigger than Singapore,” Bakakrishnan said at the time.
“A world order based on ‘might is right’, or where ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’, such a world order would be profoundly inimical to the security and survival of small states,” he said.
The US Department of Treasury on Friday removed India along with Italy, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam from its Currency Monitoring List.
China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan are the seven economies that are a part of the current monitoring list, the Department of Treasury said in its biannual report to the Congress.
The countries that have been removed from the list have met only one out of three criteria for two consecutive reports, it said.
“China’s failure to publish foreign exchange intervention and broader lack of transparency around key features of its exchange rate mechanism makes it an outlier among major economies and warrants Treasury’s close monitoring,” said the report.
The founder of Mamee Monster, the iconic Southeast Asian noodle snack brand, has died, the company confirmed Tuesday.
Mamee-Double Decker Group, a Malaysian food manufacturer, told CNN Business that Pang Chin Hin diedon Saturday at the age of 92. Local media had givenhis age as 96, reflecting a traditional Chinese way of calculating age.
“Without [him] many of our childhoods would be very different,” GroupCEO Pierre Pang Hee Ta, Pang’s grandson, told CNN Business in a statement. “He is truly a legend, we have our utmost respect for him, and we are grateful for what he has done and will now continue his legacy.”
Pang leaves behind a beloved brand that has become a pantry staple for consumers across the region. Mamee is best known for its colorful packets of crunchy, dry instant noodles, which are typically sold with savory powdered flavoring. Some have likened the image of a furry blue cartoon character on its packaging to Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster.
Pang, a former used car dealer, founded the company in 1971, when he and a business partner set up an instant noodle factory in the Malaysian coastal state of Malacca.
The company started off making traditional instant noodles, with packs of vermicelli sold under a brand called Lucky.
About three years later, Pang’s son noticed laborers who worked as rubber tappers “eating uncooked instant noodles straight from the pack,” according to a company biography posted on its website. The family then decided to branch out into a new category: selling noodles as dried snacks.
The Mamee line now has various powdered flavors, ranging from barbecue to chicken to black pepper. The company says the name of the snacks, which are popular with children, is a play on the word “Mummy.”The group sells its products in 86 countries.
Today, the company’s product range has expanded to include a variety of snacks and beverages, including Double Decker crackers, Mister Potato chips and Boom+ vitamin drinks.
In an interview this year, Pang’s grandson said that while Mamee was its most recognizable brand, Mister Potato crisps were its biggest moneymaker.
Pierre Pang told Malaysian publication The Edge in March that the launch of those potato chips was “the single most important decision in our history, as the brand contributes more than 70% of our revenue and is exported to 18 markets.”
He added that his father and grandfather, the now late Pang, were receptive to new ideas and supportive of his vision to grow the company in new directions.
“I’m so fortunate that they are so open,” he said. “We are the product of two great, forward-thinking generations.”
Ever since she was young, Cheryl Sew Hoy always knew she wanted to run her own business.
“When teachers asked what’s your ambition … and a lot of kids wanted to be doctors or lawyers. My ambition was [to be] a businesswoman,” she told CNBC Make It.
That childhood dream is now a reality for the 39-year-old serial entrepreneur, whose ventures include Reclip.It, a consumer software startup that was acquired by Walmart Labs in 2013.
Now, she runs Tiny Health, a health tech startup that sells at-home gut health tests for moms and babies from 0 to 3 years old. The CEO and founder said the test can help detect gut imbalances early on and prevent chronic conditions.
Just last week, the company raised $4.5 million in seed money and said its backers include U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Google‘s X, and Dropbox.
Cheryl Sew Hoy (centre) with her mom and 4-year-old daughter Charlize.
Tiny Health
Sew Hoy, a Malaysian now based in Austin, Texas, attributes her success to her mother who was also a businesswoman running her own marketing business in Malaysia.
“My momowned her own business and she was the boss. Before work-from-home was popular, she was already working from home and I always had this role model,” she added.
Things have come “full circle” for Sew Hoy, who is now a momto two kids aged 2 and 4, as she begins imparting lessons she has learned to them.
What tips does she have in raising entrepreneurial kids? CNBC Make It finds out.
It’s hard to teach children what business they can create at a young age, but kids “remember stories” — and that’s the best way to expose them to entrepreneurship, said Sew Hoy.
While she modelled after her motherby simply observing, Sew Hoy said she wanted to be “more intentional” about speaking to her children about running a business.
For example, she explains to her children about her job as a CEO, the “backstory” of why she started Tiny Health.
I teach them why I’m working hard. Yes, it’s to make money but it’s not just to buy food or to spend it.
Cheryl Sew Hoy
CEO and founder, Tiny Health
“Talk to them like adults, even if you think they are too young to understand. The more you talk to them like adults, [you’ll realize] they actually understand a lot and they learn a lot from that.”
By explaining to her children what she does, Sew Hoy said she’s also teaching them the value of money.
“I teach them why I’m working hard. Yes, it’s to make money but it’s not just to buy food or to spend it. While making money, you need to build something of value to people. What problems do you want to solve in the world?”
Entrepreneurship is all about problem-solving and that’s something that children can learn through adversity, said Hoy.
“There’s a difference between great entrepreneurs and good entrepreneurs. The great entrepreneurs are the ones who will bounce back continuously because it’s really freaking hard running a company everyday,” said Sew Hoy.
If children have only “smooth journeys” where problems are always solved for them, they will never learn that value, she added.
If children have only “smooth journeys” where problems are always solved for them, they will never learn about adversity, said Cheryl Sew Hoy, pictured here with her family.
Tiny Health
“It requires a lot of patience. My daughter would whine and be like, ‘Mommy, I can’t do it.’ I’ll encourage her to try again, and maybe help her a little bit,” she said.
“If she succeeds — especially if she succeeds on her own — she learns a lesson that ‘If you had given up before, you wouldn’t have accomplished this.’”
Sew Hoy said she noticed “a spark” going off in her 4-year-old daughter after going through the same scenario with her a few times.
“I know she’s learning because the next time [she tries to do something], she’s telling me, ‘Mommy, I can do it. I’m strong.’”
“So if our life gets too easy, I would create adversity [for my kids].”
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia — Malaysia’s 97-year-old former leader Mahathir Mohamad announced Tuesday he will defend his seat in the general elections expected next month, though he wouldn’t say whether he would be prime minister a third time if his political alliance wins.
“We have not decided who will be prime minister because the prime minister candidate is only relevant if we win,” Mahathir told a news conference.
Though unlikely, he would be the oldest ever candidate for the post, which has a five-year term.
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved Parliament on Monday for snap polls, caving in to pressure from his United Malays National Organization party, which is hoping for a big win on its own amid feuds with allies in the ruling coalition. The Election Commission will meet on Oct. 20 to fix a date for the vote, which must be held within 60 days of Parliament’s dissolution.
Despite his age and a health scare this year, Mahathir said he will defend his parliamentary seat in Langkawi island. He also warned that a win by the ruling UMNO party could see imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak pardoned and let off the hook.
Mahathir was a UMNO premier for 22 years until his retirement in 2003. Then, in 2016, he was inspired to return to politics by the massive looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state fund during Najib’s term in office and rode a wave of public anger to lead the opposition to a historic victory in 2018 polls that ousted UMNO, which had ruled since the country’s independence from Britain in 1957.
Mahathir became the world’s oldest head of government at 93, and oversaw graft charges against Najib and other UMNO leaders. But his reformist alliance collapsed in less than two years due to defections, returning UMNO to power under a new coalition government.
After his government’s collapse in 2020, Mahathir formed the Pejuang party and a new alliance with several small parties.
Mahathir, echoing both the opposition and UMNO allies, slammed UMNO on Tuesday for putting its own interest first in rushing elections during the annual monsoon season in November that brings major floods. He said UMNO aims to win big by offering bribes and money to the people.
He said UMNO’s main objective is to free Najib, who began his 12-year jail term in August after losing his final appeal in a corruption case linked to the 1MDB scandal. Najib also faces several other trials linked to 1MDB that could lengthen his jail term if he is found guilty. UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is also on trial for dozens of graft charges unrelated to the 1MDB case.
“If they win this election, their first move would be to ask (Malaysia’s king) to pardon Najib. At this moment, they have made a request but has not been pardoned,” Mahathir said. “Should they be able to win and form the government, that is their first objective, not about the welfare of the people.”
Mahathir said his political alliance hasn’t been approved by the government and that some 120 candidates will run under Pejuang’s banner in Malay-dominated parliamentary seats.
Analysts said Mahathir’s pull may no longer appeal to ethnic Malay voters who supported him in 2018. UMNO, which had only 36 out of 222 lawmakers in the just-dissolved Parliament, believes many Malays have returned to its fold following its landslide victory in recent byelections.
The Alliance of Hope, which Mahathir led to victory in 2018 polls, remains the key contender with 90 lawmakers. Its prime minister candidate is Anwar Ibrahim, who was originally due to succeed Mahathir before their government collapsed.
While Mahathir competes head-on with UMNO and others for votes of Malays, who account for two-thirds of Malaysia’s 33 million people, Anwar’s alliance remains on a multi-racial platform. Ethnic Chinese and Indians form large minorities in the country.
Anwar said Monday that the election will be a time for the people to vote out traitors who led to the collapse of his alliance government in 2020.
“Did you think we could reverse 60 years of entrenched corruption and kleptocracy with just one election? Did you think these conniving robbers and thieves would just give up?” Anwar said in a statement. “We don’t give up, either. We don’t give up, ever.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Friday targeted an alleged Malaysian wildlife trafficker and what officials called his transnational criminal organization for financial sanctions related to the illegal shipment of rhino horn, ivory and other specimens.
The Treasury Department said Malaysian national Teo Boon Ching, his alleged trafficking organization and the Malaysian firm Sunrise Greenland Sdn. Bhd. engage in the “cruel trafficking of endangered and threatened wildlife and the products of brutal poaching.”
Teo specializes in the transportation of rhino horn, ivory, and pangolins — also known as scaly anteaters — from Africa, using routes through Malaysia and Laos to consumers in Vietnam and China, the U.S. said.
Teo was arrested in Thailand on June 29 and extradited to the U.S. on Friday, according to a joint statement by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams and Assistant Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement Edward J. Grace.
Teo, 57, faces one count of conspiracy to commit wildlife trafficking and two counts of money laundering. The money laundering charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and the trafficking conspiracy charge carries a maximum of five years imprisonment, the statement said.
It was not immediately clear if Teo was represented by a U.S. attorney who could comment on his behalf.
The Justice Department has accused Teo of participating in a conspiracy to traffic in more than 70 kilograms (154 pounds) of rhinoceros horns valued at more than $725,000, which involved poaching several animals from the endangered species, and laundering the proceeds.
Teo led a transnational criminal enterprise based in Asia with significant operations in Malaysia and Thailand. Their activities included poaching and international trafficking and smuggling of rhinoceros horns, the Justice Department said.
Teo allegedly served as a specialized smuggler, transporting rhinoceros horns from poaching operations centered largely in Africa to customers primarily in Asia. Teo also claimed to be able to ship rhinoceros horns to the U.S., authorities said.
Among other things, the sanctions deny Teo and others access to any property or financial assets held in the U.S. and prevent U.S. companies and people from doing business with them.
The Associated Press was not immediately able to contact Sunrise Greenland for comment. The company is based in Malaysia’s southern state of Johor, near Singapore.
Seizures of pangolin scales increased 10-fold between 2014 and 2018, according to the U.N.’s 2020 World Wildlife Crime Report.
Criminals tend to exploit legislative and enforcement gaps in some countries in efforts to hide the illegal trafficking, the report said.
“This is the case, for example, with pangolin scale traders who choose to store their stock in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as opposed to other source countries due to a perception of lesser capacity for interdiction,” the U.N. said.
Brian E. Nelson, Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and illicit finance, said wildlife trafficking groups perpetuate corruption and illicit finance.
“The United States considers wildlife trafficking to be not only a critical conservation concern, but also a threat to global security,” Nelson said.
Treasury worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, State Department and the government of Thailand to uncover the case.
Malaysia said Friday it would take legal action against Facebook parent company Meta for failing to remove “undesirable” posts, the strongest measure the country has taken to date over such content.
Last year’s closely fought national election has led to a rise in ethnic tensions, and since coming to power in November, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration has vowed to curb what it calls provocative posts that touch on race and religion.
Facebook
(FB) has recently been “plagued by” a significant volume of undesirable content relating to race, royalty, religion, defamation, impersonation, online gambling and scam advertisements, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said in a statement.
It also said Meta had failed to take sufficient action despite the body’s repeated requests and that legal action was necessary to promote accountability for cybersecurity and protect consumers.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The commission also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what legal action might be taken.
Race and religion are thorny issues in Malaysia, which has a majority of Muslim ethnic Malays alongside significant ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian minorities.
Commentary on the country’s revered royals is also a sensitive issue, and negative remarks toward them can be tried under sedition laws.
The action against Facebook comes just weeks ahead of regional elections in six states that are expected to pit Anwar’s multi-ethnic coalition against a conservative Malay Muslim alliance.
Facebook is Malaysia’s biggest social media platform, with an estimated 60% of its population of 33 million having a registered account.
Globally, big social media firms that include Meta, Google’s
(GOOGL) YouTube, and TikTok are often under regulatory scrutiny over content posted on their platforms.
Some Southeast Asian governments have frequently requested that content be taken down.
In 2020, Vietnam threatened to shut down Facebook in the country if it did not bow to government pressure to censor more local political content on its platform. The authorities said last year that social media platforms operating in Vietnam removed more than 3,200 posts and videos in the first quarter that contained false information and violated the country’s law.
In Indonesia in 2019, Facebook took down hundreds of local accounts, pages and groups linked to a fake news syndicate.
