🇲🇾 Is a multi-racial Malaysia 'unconstitutional'?

Hello friends!

This is the first week of trying out a new schedule. The maritime section has become very unwieldy — so much news! So, for now, at least, Malaysia and Singapore will come to premium readers each Tuesday. 

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Would also like to flag the end of Between the Lines. The daily Malaysia news newsletter has been absolutely indispensable to me and many other readers over the years, a true steady guide during the most confusing political developments in recent years and providing outstanding analysis and reporting during the pandemic. Thank you so much to Darsh and the team. It was a treat to be a reader for so long.

See you tomorrow for the Mekong section!

Erin Cook

🇲🇾 Warrior for the constitution, or ethnically divisive?

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is at it again. He again took to social media over the weekend to attack his old bugbear — the Democratic Action Party and his perception that the governing coalition member is undermining the ‘Malayness’ of Malaysia. 

The current government claims Malaysia is a democratic nation. There is apparently freedom of expression... Is it against the law to defend the Federal Constitution? On the contrary, it is against the Constitution to promote a multiracial nation. Is the government rejecting the rule of law, including the constitution, which does not mention Malaysia as a multiracial country but instead emphasises the ‘Malayness’ of Malaysia?” he wrote, as per Malaysiakini.

He alleged DAP, which has traditionally been supported by Chinese and Indian Malaysians, is exercising its power within the coalition: “DAP only has four ministers. But it has 40 members in government (the number of MPs). If DAP withdraws its support, Anwar’s government will fall. Therefore, Anwar has to adhere to DAP’s manifesto, especially on making Tanah Melayu a multiracial country and replacing the official religion of Islam with a secular country... (turning) Malaysia into a nation with no official religion.”

“That’s enough, Tun. (DAP) has never questioned the position of Islam in the constitution. At the same time, we defend the rights of all citizens, regardless of race or religion, as enshrined in the constitution,” Bandar Kuching MP and DAP cadre Dr Kelvin Yii wrote in his own social media response, as reported by FMT. 

The Selangor state elections heated up immediately after the state government was dissolved on June 23. Selangor is the country’s wealthiest state and both the federal government and the opposition are eyeing it off. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan and ex-prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Perikatan Nasional both held events in the state capital Shah Alam on the 24th. Straits Times reports polling shows Barisan Nasional, an uneasy partner of Pakatan Harapan, is facing serious concerns about retaining its seats, let alone picking up new ones. 

The chaos of national politics may be to blame, one strategist told Straits Times: “Many who voted BN did not want Anwar in government and many who voted PH did not want (Umno president) Zahid Hamidi in government. But now they are PM and Deputy PM respectively.” 

As of Thursday, the EU Deforestation Regulation will block the sale of imports including palm oil, beef and rubber from lands that have been deforested since 2020. For Indonesia and Malaysia, this could be a nightmare and after a joint mission to Brussels, led by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof and Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Economy Airlangga Hartarto, Europe is treading carefully. 

Florika Fink-Hooijer, the European Commission's director general for the environment, sat down with Nikkei Asia in Kuala Lumpur to chat about a newly launched joint task force between the bloc and the two countries. “I think it was useful also for the principals of Malaysia and Indonesia to come to make their concerns known in Brussels,” she said of the Brussels visit. 

“When needed, matters may be addressed on the country-specific approach in an inclusive and transparent manner under the framework of the Joint Task Force,” she said. The task force will have a focus on ‘palm oil, wood, rubber, coffee and cocoa,’ Nikkei reports. 

Companies have until next December to comply, but smaller holdings have been granted an extra six months. 

Malaysia, hold on to your  $15 billion. That’s the ruling from courts in the Hague and France last week finally (hopefully) drawing a line under the long-running dispute over who ‘owns’ Sabah. It all stems back to an 1878 agreement between the then Sultanate of Sabah, who leased the state to a British firm. The whole thing is messy and weird, so I’m pleased this is resolved and we don’t have to touch it again. 

“Malaysia trusts that today’s decision of The Hague Court of Appeal, combined with the recent decision of the Paris Court of Appeal, will put an end to the frivolous attempts of the Claimants to enforce the purported Final Award in other jurisdictions,” Prime Minister Anwar said in a statement, as reported by Bloomberg. 

Good, says Sabahans. “The recent decisions by the Hague Court of Appeals and the previous decision by the French Court of Appeals indirectly indicate that the claims made by the Sulu group as heirs of Sulu are baseless and malicious. Safeguarding the sovereignty of Sabah has not been an easy task, but through agreement, close cooperation, and relentless efforts from all parties, we have achieved a significant victory for the people of Sabah,” Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah president Arthur Kurup said in a statement, per the Vibes.  

🇸🇬 Great housing, if you can get it

Oh my days! An announcement that UOB credit card holders could use a different queue to buy Taylor Swift tickets to her Singapore shows — the only performances in the region — saw daily applications jump 45% across all of Southeast Asia. It was almost perfectly tailored (lol) to millennial women. More than half are women and more than a third are between 30 and 40, Bloomberg reports. 

In much less fun news, a new report from the suicide prevention organisation Samaritans of Singapore found suicide in the city had climbed nearly 26% last year. It’s the highest rate in more than 20 years. “Seeing the unprecedented rise in suicide numbers in Singapore is profoundly heartbreaking. This increase paints a picture of the unseen mental distress permeating our society, especially amongst our youths and the elderly,” psychiatrist and mental health consultant Jared Ng said, as per AFP.

Another day, another government scandal involving property. The Singapore Land Authority did not do anything wrong in leasing two gorgeous Ridout Road bungalows to Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam’s wife and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan’s wife, the government has found. 

“As PM, my duty is not just to be satisfied that legally there was no wrongdoing, but whether, quite apart from the law, there was any other kind of misconduct or impropriety. Ministers Shanmugam and Balakrishnan have done nothing wrong and they retain my full confidence. But this accounting in Parliament is not just to resolve the issue of the rentals on black-and-white properties in Ridout Road, important as that is. It's also a demonstration of how the PAP is determined to uphold the standards which it has set itself from the beginning in 1959,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in parliament, referring to his People’s Action Party. 

Opposition leader Pritam Singh of the Worker’s Party isn’t quite as convinced about reports the ministers had reached out to SLA for the properties. It’s not about corruption, he said in parliament, it’s about how it looks to the average Singaporean: “It is quite incongruous, in the eyes of many, for a minister to be asking a civil servant details which pertain to information for his personal use.”