Beyond the Ballot Box

In late February 2026, the United States and Israel carried out coordinated illegal military strikes on Iran, which is a sovereign country. Within the first few days, they bombed a school full of young Iranian girls and assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian head of state. This set off a rapidly escalating regional conflict, with Iran attacking US military bases in neighbouring Gulf countries, as well as restricting ships from entering the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important arteries of the global economy.

So what does this escalation mean for global energy markets, trade, and economic stability. Where does ASEAN and Malaysia stand in all of this? After all, in Malaysia, our subsidies maintain how much we have to fork out for fuel as consumers, but the actual price has skyrocketed which will have tremendous ripple effects. 

We unpack all of this and more with Yin Shao Loong, Deputy Director of Research, Khazanah Research Institute. 

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Today, we’re living through what often feels like a constant stream of disruptions, from wars, economic instability, the climate change, and even loneliness and a loss of meaning and purpose in life. 

In an article for For Pol India, political analyst Manishankar Prasad argues that these crises are not isolated but intertwined and due to late-stage capitalism. So, in this episode, we speak to Manishankar about how these overlapping crises may be a structural feature of neoliberal capitalism, driven by inequality, financialization, and the concentration of power in the hands of the elites. They also examine how automation and AI, rather than liberating people, often displace workers and deepen insecurity, contributing to a broader loss of meaning, and so much more.

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Timor-Leste is a relatively young nation with an incredibly rich history and culture that many, even within the region, may not be very familiar with. It is also the newest member of ASEAN.

In this episode, we’re joined by Dr Rui Maria de Araújo. Dr Rui, who's a member of the revolutionary centre-left political party Fretilin, is a physician, public health specialist, and statesman, and also served as Prime Minister of Timor-Leste between 2015 and 2017. He has been a long-time public health leader, playing a key role in rebuilding the country’s healthcare system and shaping Timor-Leste’s development path.

We discuss what comes next now that the country has officially joined ASEAN – from striking a balance between trade and development to investing in human capital. We also talk about the country’s rich history and culture. 

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Petaling Jaya was originally developed in the 1950s as one of Malaysia’s first planned suburbs, built to house residents moving out of the crowded city centre of Kuala Lumpur.

Decades later, many of its neighbourhoods are ageing even as demand to live in PJ remains strong because of its central location and economic activity. Now, a new local plan aims to transform the city from a low-rise suburb into a denser, more vibrant urban centre that can attract younger residents while remaining liveable for existing communities.

In this episode, we unpack that vision and what it could mean for the future of Petaling Jaya, with Kusaaliny Mahendran, Councillor, Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ). Kusha is also a member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and is on the committee of the DAP’s socialist youth wing. We also spent some time talking about some of the heightened racial and religious tensions recently involving temples.

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Malaysia’s fight against corruption remains one of the country’s most persistent political and institutional challenges. While the latest results from the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index show Malaysia improving slightly to 52 points and ranking 54th globally, the broader picture remains complicated. Progress in rankings does not necessarily mean corruption has been meaningfully reduced, especially as major controversies continue to surface around powerful institutions, corporate interests, and the very bodies tasked with enforcing anti-corruption laws.
We speak to Raymon Ram, President, Transparency International Malaysia, about how the government is doing in its fight against corruption.

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MANDIRI is a youth-driven civil society organisation founded in 2024 that aims to strengthen democratic participation, social justice, and civic engagement among young people. It is established by a group of activists, namely Amir Hadi, Mohamad Alshatry and Dobby Chew – names you probably recognise if you’ve been listening to the show for some time. 

In this episode, we speak to Dobby Chew about what the organisation is all about, the state of civil society in Malaysia today, and the upcoming MUDA elections in which Dobby is contesting.

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Malaysia today finds itself at an important juncture. For starters, the MADANI government is currently led by a reformist coalition and a Prime Minister who has championed good governance and institutional reform for decades. 

The past few weeks have been especially pivotal, though. On the one hand, you’ve got a recent Bloomberg investigation into alleged “corporate mafia” behaviour within the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), including controversy surrounding Chief Commissioner Azam Baki.  This has reignited public concerns about integrity and continues to impact public trust in the government and institutions. 

At the same time, the government has tabled major reform initiatives  from the long-debated Attorney General–Public Prosecutor split to a constitutional amendment to introduce a two-term limit for the Prime Minister. 

So, how do we make sense of the government’s reform agenda so far, particularly when it comes to prosecutorial independence and the structures of the MACC?

We speak to Maha Balakrishnan, Parliamentary and Policy Advocacy Specialist. 

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Two days ago, the U.S. and Israel launched massive joint air operations against Iran, saying they were targeting military infrastructure and seeking regime change. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, including more than a hundred young Iranian girls, whose school was bombed. Several senior Iranian military figures and politicians have also been killed, including the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Iran has since launched retaliatory attacks on U.S. bases across the Gulf. The confrontation is ongoing and continues to escalate.

The death of Ayatollah Khamenei has invited a spectrum of responses from outright condemnation of what many see as illegal aggression, to support from those who argue that removing authoritarian regimes may create space for democracy.
In this episode, we step back from the headlines to examine the first principles of geopolitics: who has the right to decide, and on what grounds.

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For the longest time, particularly since the late 90s, then-opposition parties from PKR to DAP to PAS campaigned on a platform of anti-corruption and anti-cronyism, against the Barisan Nasional. This only intensified during former, disgraced Prime Minister Najib Razak’s time in power and the 1MDB scandal. This ultimately led to the downfall of the Barisan Nasional government in 2018.

The question is, how much do these parties actually practice the transparency and accountability they once demanded of others?

Recently, the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), in collaboration with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), published a paper on the transparency index of political parties in Malaysia.

In this episode, we speak to one of the co-authors of the paper, Dr Haris Zuan, from UKM, about what the findings reveal regarding internal democracy and financial transparency within Malaysia’s major political parties.

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We often hear about neighbourhoods being evicted, houses being torn down, and communities organising against the state or private developers, demanding fair compensation, proper consultation, and the right to remain on their land.

Development, Displacement and Democracy: The Place of Eviction Protests in Malaysia is a paper that examines how these eviction protests function as an important but often overlooked form of democratic participation in Malaysia’s development process. The paper argues that eviction protests should be recognised as legitimate democratic actors and recommends stronger legal protections, institutionalised public consultation, and formal inclusion of CSOs to ensure more participatory and just development in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this episode, we unpack the paper with its author, Jeremy Lim. 

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