The year ahead - but make it maritime

Hello friends!

As promised, here’s the second half of our two-part year ahead series. 

Until the end of this year, I’m offering 50% off a new annual subscription — so that’s $30 for 2024 and locked in at $60 for the years ahead. If this newsletter project has brought value to your inbox, please consider supporting it. 

If you can’t — or are already subscribed! — please think about forwarding to a friend or colleague who might be interested. Word of mouth (hey! That’s the name of the newsletter!) is the number one way for people to find this and it’s such a valuable show of support.

Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed over the last 24 hours! It’s an immense endorsement of this project and it often feels as though I’m sending newsletters into the ether, so I’m thrilled. 

On the other hand, one of my New Year’s resolutions is going to be cracking down on the .gov/.gov.au/.eu etc. email addresses that I can see mass forwarding the paywalled newsletters to colleagues. I’m so pleased to see this give so much utility to people but it is my job. This is my major source of income and it’s devastating to see people (especially those making far more than me!) take advantage of that. This sort of behaviour ruins it for everyone else and truly makes me want to give it up. 

Substack has a fantastic institutional and group membership tier and there are plenty of readers who have been reimbursed from work with a quick receipt. There are many ways to make sure you can keep reading and I can pay my rent — win-win!  I keep saying I’m taking next week off, but there’s a higher than zero chance I’ll be back on account of how boring that dead week can be.

See you then!Erin Cook

🇮🇩 It’s an election year in Indonesia which means everything else pales in significance. The first round of voting is set for Feb. 14 but is likely to go to the run-off stage. I have a hot take on this that’s percolating (I voiced it for the first time last night only after four Asahi and in the presence of an old nerd friend, which means I’m almost ready to be brave!) and I’m keen to relaunch my Ayolah newsletter now that stuff is ACTUALLY happening. 

But it’s not just three heavy-hitters vying for president. Indonesia will elect leaders all the way down to the local level. Elections are typically very safe and straightforward — a testament to one of the major wins of the Reformasi period — but always toughly fought. I’ll be keeping an eye on a few governor races in particular, especially in Jakarta, Bali, across Java and South Sulawesi where something dramatic always happens. 

The election’s scale means everything else kinda goes on hold for a bit. As it stands now, most of the candidates are pledging to continue most of President Jokowi’s policies but it’s not particularly convincing. What is interesting is: what’s next for Jokowi and his clan. He spent 2023 firming up his dynasty but what will that look like by December 2024? Can he be a heavyweight Megawati Sukarnoputri, defining Indonesian politics for a decade through her PDI-P? Or will he be a Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who never quite seems in control? (And then there’s Mega herself, but there’s a book in that) 

🇧🇳 Across the Borneo border in Brunei, 2024 will begin with a royal wedding. Prince Abdul Mateen and Anisha Isa Kalebic will marry in a ten-day festival beginning January 7. Beyond smashing my Google alerts with low-quality tabloid churnalism, I do hope it means we’ll get some indication of succession plans. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah is the world’s longest-serving monarch and a relatively spritely 77-year-old, so it doesn’t seem particularly pressing I’m just nosy. There’s always small-scale news in the energy sector so expect more of that. 

🇲🇾 Oof, Malaysia. It’s been so dramatic over there for the last few years I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on. I will say I’m looking forward to more brilliant coverage from Malaysiakini and Nikkei Asia, both of which have done great work on Malaysia this year. Likewise, the Straits Times and Channel News Asia both have run outstanding pieces on PAS and the rise of right-wing Islamist politics and I’m looking forward to another year of that coverage.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has done very well on some things and not great on others in his first year in office. On the economy, he’s been especially wasted so I would expect to see substantial movement there from him — or his 2024 might be in trouble. 

🇸🇬Across the Causeway, we’ve got an interesting year ahead. Earlier this year Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced he’d be stepping down in the second half of 2024 to make way for successor Lawrence Wong. The People’s Action Party run a tight ship and I can’t imagine any hiccups in the plan there. It’s everything else that has the longtime ruling party nervous. The next General Election doesn’t have to be held until the end of 2025 but the party will be working hard to shore up Wong’s credibility as a bulwark against opposition gains in the previous vote. 

We should learn more about August’s enormous financial crimes crackdown that saw 10 people arrested and big money assets seized. So far, the authorities have kept it all quite close to the chest and left finance journalists to parse what shifting regulations can tell us. Interestingly, regulators made it clear that it’s not really Singaporean nationals involved and that’s heightened scrutiny on foreign money in the city which has already had a huge impact. In the year ahead I want to know all the juicy details as well as some thoughtful and comprehensive analysis on where this will leave Singapore in the end. 

🇵🇭 The Philippines had an interesting 2023. President Bongbong Marcos Jr didn’t turn out to be half as mental as everyone’s worst nightmare suggested (enormous caveat being that we don’t know everything and the Philippines is the Philippines). His 2024 will be a tough one still. The country is very much on the frontline of the US-China beef in the region and the recent escalation of skirmishes in the South China Sea looks far more likely to continue than not. 

Should be a good year for punters who love Malacañang high drama. A split between Marcos and his vice president, Sara Duterte, emerged from the shadows in the second half of this year and surely cannot be sustained for another 12 months without some sort of showdown. I’d wager equally on a spat over the International Criminal Court’s floated investigation into Papa Duterte’s war on drugs as some inane, low-level argument that boils over. 

🇹🇱 Over the way in Timor-Leste, I’ll be keeping a watch on President Jose Ramos-Horta. He is deeply gifted with dropping a cracking line and spent much of 2023 either roasting countries or supporting people’s movements across the region. A doll. (I’ve spent the last fortnight in the National Library accidentally sidetracked on Australia’s involvement in Timor over the decades and I am frothing with white-hot rage.)