COMMENT | Malaysia's lost year of opportunity?

COMMENT | Today marks a full year of Muhyiddin Yassin as the eighth prime minister. We will hear varied views on his tenure in office – ranging from saccharine accolades in government-linked media to harsh censure in more independent outfits.

Assessments will fall into the different polarised lenses where those who accept his government legitimised to ethnic appeals sharply differ from those who view his capitalising on defection as a means to secure power and use of patronage and exclusion to maintain power as illegitimate. The twain perspectives of the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ government will coexist.

In the attention on one individual and his merry men, the larger picture can be forgotten. This articles not looking at Muhyiddin’s leadership – his kampung grandfather ‘Abah’ appeal, his ‘less is more’ presence, his unwillingness to redress the excesses, poor/uneven performance and double standards of his appointees and his administration’s embodiment of power as an entitlement couched as a protector.

Instead, it asks a more important question: where is Malaysia one year later? I argue that Malaysia has lost an opportunity to use this year of crises for needed structural and policy reforms, and failing to embrace this window...