The Week Ahead: National Assembly to rise from the Burning Furnace ashes

Hello friends!

This week there is a lot to keep a watch for, and it’s mostly complicated and ground-shifting stuff. New leadership in Vietnam, a puzzling attack on police in Malaysia, trouble for the Prime Minister in Thailand and potentially seismic legal reform in Indonesia ahead.

There are some enormous developments in Myanmar, especially in Rakhine and Sagaing, which we will get into later this week. I’m very lucky to be attending two fantastic events this week about Myanmar to hear some big-brain takes on all of this and hope to bring some of those insights to your inbox.

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See you tomorrow!
Erin Cook

🇻🇳 New leadership in Vietnam as National Assembly readies for session

Vietnam’s Communist Party Central Committee has “a high level of consensus” on the scandalously vacant positions after “democratic discussions and careful consideration” during the ninth session of the 13th Central Party Committee, VN Express reported Saturday.

The meeting, which came ahead of the next National Assembly session opening today, has mostly concerned itself with the appointments of high-profile positions after a string of incinerated careers in the ‘burning furnace’ of the anti-corruption drive, including president. Public Security Minister To Lam has been named president, but will also remain in that portfolio which is extremely interesting to me, given how busy that office has been since he took seat in 2016. Tran Thanh Man will head the National Assembly, replacing Vuong Dinh Hue who was felled for ‘violations and shortcomings’ last month. 

Both have been accepted by the Politburo — along with four new members to the governing body — but will be formally approved at the National Assembly sitting this week.

Sure, it’s been unusually busy and dramatic in Vietnam’s leadership ranks lately but investors are not spooked. The promise of Vietnam still rides high, with Bloomberg reporting a 7.3% increase in foreign investment in the first quarter year on year, even with 2023 accounting for a bumper year. You’ve never seen more foreign investment in Vietnam — and a great majority of that is going into the super productive manufacturing sector, which underpins Vietnam’s growth … Vietnam’s pretty solid right now,” Peter Ryder, Hanoi-based chairman of investment and development firm Indochina Capital, told Bloomberg. 

Much of the analysis in recent months suggested that with seemingly endless scalps in the anti-corruption crusade, investors could be skittish. So far the Politburo has bucked that, but let’s wait for Q2 to wrap up. 

🇲🇾 Answers raise more questions in Johor attack

A tense weekend in Malaysia as the country learned more about an early Friday morning attack in Johor Bahru that left a policeman hacked to death and another shot and killed. The suspect, who attacked a police station wielding a machete, is believed to have acted alone.

“We have established that the attacker acted on his own ... a lone wolf driven by certain motivation and his own understanding. His action is not linked to any larger mission,” Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution said Saturday, as reported by the AP. The comments followed initial speculation that the suspect, just 21, was a part of Jemaah Islamiyah and prompted wider raids on known associations and family. 

It’s been an odd weekend. Media reported that a Singaporean national had been arrested which police have since rejected, and I saw plenty of speculation about Indonesian links which have since disappeared with statements from both the government and the police. What’s interesting here, I think, is that few seem to believe we have the full story. Social media and comments on news reports are awash with criticism and dismissal of the authorities’ comments. But, with the week ahead and more statements and details no doubt to come, I’m curious to see how that cynicism shakes out.

This certainly hasn’t helped things. Separately, two men have been remanded in custody until Tuesday after they were arrested attempting to enter the Istana Negara in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, New Straits Time reported over the weekend. The pair carried a machete with them but details remain far and few. 

🇹🇭 Constitutional Court to weigh Srettha’s fate after senators’ petition

The hits don’t stop for Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who is fairly unpopular among the electorate and also, apparently, the Senate. On Friday, 40 senators tabled a petition to the Constitutional Court calling for the dismissal of the PM over choices made in the cabinet reshuffle last month. How rare for a reshuffle to be this significant! 

These senators are very unhappy to see former lawyer Pichit Chuenban appointed as a Prime Minister’s Office minister. He’s a throwback character to the Thaksin Shinawatra days and was jailed for six months in 2008 ‘for contempt of court after an alleged attempt to bribe court officials with 2 million baht ($55,218) hidden in a paper grocery bag,’ Reuters reports. Oh, dear. His professional connections with Thaksin, who was a client, are widely believed to be behind the appointment. 

“Pichit is not qualified to be a minister but the prime minister still nominated him for the position. The prime minister's action may therefore breach ethical standards as well,” Senator Derekrid Janekrongtham told Reuters.

Neither are equipped to serve, the 40 say — Pichit’s an obvious case, but his selection is surely an ethics violation on Srettha’s behalf. The court will meet on Thursday to decide if Pichit and Srettha both need to be suspended while the allegations are investigated. Suspension of a sitting PM has recent precedent. Former prime minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha spent a few months suspended back in 2022 while the same court parsed the term limit requirements.  

🇮🇩 Law reforms portend next House session

Twin law reforms slated to pass in Indonesia are set to reverse democratic gains since the fall of Suharto a generation ago, analysts and democracy-likers worry. The oft-floated plan of requiring the Constitutional Court to be evaluated and approved by the parliament looks set to come to fruition. This great piece from Arie Firdaus and Ami Afriatni at Benar tracks the first murmurs of this move from the 2019 hyper-controversial Jobs Creation Law, which the court ruled must be reined in. While the court did approve presidential scion and VP-to-be Gibran Rakabuming Raka to run second fiddle to Prabowo Subianto despite constitutional age restrictions, the subsequent high-profile soul-searching from within the judiciary is also widely believed to have moved things along here. 

Proposed amendments to the Broadcasting Bill will wind back press freedoms, Indonesia’s Press Council and others in the media warn. The amendments would, among other things, restrict investigative journalism and would strip the Press Council of its role in arbitrating media complaints and hand that responsibility over to the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI). “The KPI is an independent entity and should not be obligated to consult the House of Representatives,” Bayu Wardhana, secretary-general of the Alliance of Independent Journalists, told the Straits Times.   

I discussed this at length with Kevin O’Rourke, who is much more versed in the Indonesian legal system than I am, so check that out here. The new parliament will sit for a plenary session from today — keep an eye on this one.