Muhyiddin’s Gambit: Royally Blocked
Francis E. Hutchinson
What the Prime Minister has proposed in suspending Parliament, the King has blocked. PM Muhyiddin ignores the will of the Sovereign at his peril.

Francis E. Hutchinson
What the Prime Minister has proposed in suspending Parliament, the King has blocked. PM Muhyiddin ignores the will of the Sovereign at his peril.
Lee Hwok-Aun
Malaysia’s recently-launched Pemerkasa+ aid package seeks to provide cash handouts to workers and income support to companies. If the economy suffers from financial hits to segments of the economy, rather than mass job losses, Malaysia would be better served with a structured reprise of higher per-worker subsidies for small companies.
Kevin Zhang|Kevin S.Y. Tan
Achieving herd immunity from Covid-19 is likely to remain a distant goal for Malaysia. Other measures beyond strict lockdowns are needed to deal with the pandemic.
Mohd Faizal Musa
PAS, under the leadership of Hadi Awang, has championed Sunni-Shi’a conciliation. But it is highly uncertain whether this will remain true under the younger generation of PAS leaders.
Policymakers' View
Liew Chin Tong
The age of innocence that has dominated Malaysia’s attitude towards defence matters in the past three decades needs to be jettisoned. Given mounting threats in its external environment, Malaysia needs to accelerate defence reforms centred on the concept of jointness across multiple domains.
Norshahril Saat|Nur Syafiqah Mohd Taufek
The growing popularity of media savvy celebrity preachers – not all of whom are theologically well-trained – could erode the quality of Islamic discourse in the longer term.
Sharifah Afra Alatas
As Malaysia battles a new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Muslim leaders and preachers have been instrumental in fighting vaccine hesitancy among their followers.
Wu Shang-Su
Malaysia’s airpower capabilities may not be enough to respond to stepped-up Chinese activities above Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone.
Francis E. Hutchinson
Due to the federal government’s slow vaccination rate, some state governments have stepped into the breach to inoculate their populations. Their collective experience thus far has been somewhat patchy.
Serina Rahman
As the government rolls out stricter measures to control the spread of COVID-19, it is unfortunate that some people on the ground blame the authorities for their incompetence instead of working together to break the back of the virus.