Defying the US, Anwar bellows support for Hamas

Malaysian leader defies threat of US sanctions while grandstanding for populist effect; he may be targeted by Israel’s Mossad intelligence

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s vocal support for the Palestinian cause could blow back on Malaysia as the United States tables legislation to sever funding for Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups through economic and financial sanctions on their foreign supporters.

Anwar’s administration has played up its resistance to US and Western pressure to review its stance on Hamas, which Malaysia has refused to condemn or label as a terrorist organization. Malaysian police, meanwhile, have warned of possible economic sabotage, espionage and even security threats to the premier allegedly emanating from Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad.

The Muslim-majority nation has long stood in solidarity with Palestine and long rejected diplomatic relations with Israel even as certain Arab nations have recently pursued normalization with Tel Aviv. Putrajaya views Hamas as the legitimately elected government of Gaza, according to Anwar, owing to its victory at 2006 parliamentary polls. Hamas members are known to reside in Malaysia to work or attend university and have been alleged targets of Israel’s spy agency.

But Anwar’s unflinching stance is just as much about local politics as he seeks to curry favor with Muslim ethnic Malays who represent a national majority and are thus crucial to his government’s survival and potential re-election.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Beyond the yen, ringgit’s free fall the one to watch

Malaysia’s currency is Asia’s second-worst performer this year, a sell-off the central bank insists is unjustified given underlying fundamentals

Malaysia’s central bank is under pressure to steady the flagging national currency, the ringgit, which in recent days fell to new multi-decade lows against the US greenback and neighboring Singapore dollar.

Analysts say Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) now faces a trade-off between raising rates and stifling an already sagging domestic economy or posing risks to financial stability by failing to act. Malaysia’s offshore borrowings, widely denominated in US dollars, amounted to 30 billion ringgit ($6.2 billion) as of August 2023.

Like other emerging market currencies, the ringgit has depreciated this year against a strong US dollar. But the extent of the slide – now the worst performer in Asia after the Japanese yen – has, according to BNM Governor Abdul Rasheed Abdul Ghaffour, belied Malaysia’s otherwise strong economic fundamentals and resilient banking sector.

“We are not in a crisis. It is different from what we experienced in the past,” Abdul Rasheed told reporters earlier this week, referring to the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis when the ringgit hit a benchmark low of 4.88 ringgit to the US dollar in March 1998.

The currency has in recent days tumbled to its lowest levels since, slipping to 4.79 to the US dollar on October 23 and hovering at 4.77 at the time of publication.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Singapore’s economy in a geopolitical squeezebox

City-state averts recession but languid growth would take a new inflationary hit if Gaza war spikes global oil prices

After narrowly avoiding a technical recession earlier this year, recent data shows better-than-expected but still sluggish growth in Singapore. But the city-state’s trade-reliant economy could decelerate for the remainder of this year and even into 2024 if the United States and Chinese economies underperform baseline forecasts, say analysts.

Gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.7% year-on-year in the July to September quarter according to according to advance estimates recently published by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI). On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted basis, the economy expanded by 1%, ahead of economists’ forecasts and faster than the tepid 0.1% growth in the preceding quarter.

In a policy statement on October 13, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the city-state’s central bank, cited “muted” growth prospects in the near term and expectations of full-year growth to come in “at the lower half” of the official forecast range of 0.5% to 1.5%. It added that growth in Singapore’s major trading partners should gradually pick up by the second half of next year.

Analysts at research firm BMI Research were less optimistic of a 2024 rebound in a research note reviewed by Asia Times. The independent monitor issued a downward revision to Singapore’s full-year growth forecast to 0.8% from 1.1% and sees a further deceleration to 0.5% in 2024, owing to slowdowns expected among Singapore’s major trade partners and fiscal consolidation.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Malaysia’s Anwar wants more money from Goldman Sachs

Malaysian leader threatens new legal action against US bank amid claims previous $3.9 billion settlement for 1MDB-related losses was insufficient

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is upping the ante on efforts to renegotiate a controversial settlement with Goldman Sachs for its role in the multi-billion-dollar 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal and extradite one of Goldman’s convicted former bankers.

“We have our position; we want some more money back,” Anwar said candidly at a regional forum in Singapore this month, asserting that Malaysia is not “some banana republic where one can plunder and leave.” The premier has since reiterated his vow to take a “tougher” stance, including potential new legal action over settlement disagreements, is not a bluff.

While many observers see merit in the Malaysian leader’s claim of being short-changed by Goldman, winning concessions from the Wall Street giant would also be a needed political win for Anwar, who has lost political ground to the ethnic Malay nationalist opposition bloc, Perikatan Nasional (PN), which approved the 2020 settlement when it led government.

According to Bloomberg, Anwar recently claimed that Goldman executives have made fresh overtures and struck a noticeably more conciliatory tone on the matter during his recent visit to New York last week for the United Nations General Assembly. But it is altogether unclear whether a quick resolution of the dispute is in the cards.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Malaysia: Zahid free today; Najib sprung tomorrow?

Politics over principle with discharge of deputy premier Zahid’s corruption cases as speculation rises jailed ex-PM Najib will be next

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is at risk of losing his progressive support base amid rising perceptions the leader is failing to live up to his anti-graft credentials. The perception shift comes as state prosecutors controversially dropped criminal charges against his deputy premier, sparking criticism that Anwar’s government is cracking down selectively on corruption.

Activists who had long supported Anwar’s reformist agenda were already peeved that his government has used laws that curb free speech and stifle dissent to appease and please politically powerful conservative forces. But Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s release from multiple graft charges marks to many the crossing of a political red line, one where Anwar has appeared to prioritize power over principle.

Indeed, many saw the move as the political price to be paid for securing support from Zahid’s scandal-tainted United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party and Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, which are crucial to sustaining the government’s parliamentary majority.

Opposition lawmaker Wan Ahmad Fayhsal said the move marked the “collapse” of Anwar’s reformasi struggle. “Their raison d’etre for the past 25 years was all about good governance, anti-corruption,” he told Asia Times. “It has gone down the drain. They’ve sacrificed it all to save one man. This government might survive, but the infrastructure of their support is crumbling.”

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Tharman’s win may hasten Singapore’s PM succession

Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s election as president raises inconvenient questions for the ruling PAP but ultimately helps it

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, a former deputy prime minister seen as close to Singapore’s political establishment, clinched a landslide victory in the city-state’s first contested presidential election in more than a decade on Friday, comfortably beating two other candidates with a record 70.4% of the vote.

Though Singapore’s presidency is a largely ceremonial role as the non-partisan head of state, analysts widely viewed the contest as a barometer of support for the long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), to which Tharman, 66, had belonged for more than two decades before resigning from all party positions and posts in June to be eligible to contest the presidency.

Amid cost-of-living challenges and a slew of recent high-profile scandals implicating PAP leaders, the wide margin of victory for Tharman caught some analysts by surprise. The results have sparked debate as to whether they truly reflect unvarnished public support for the PAP, or are instead a reflection of Tharman’s formidable personal popularity.

“This election is at least in part a referendum on the PAP. Of course, the caveat is that Tharman is more popular than his former party. I think that is undeniable,” said Walid Jumblatt Abdullah, an assistant professor in social sciences at Nanyang Technological University, in reference to Tharman’s past track record of delivering general-election landslides for the PAP in his Jurong constituency.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

An electoral season of distrust in Singapore

City-state’s presidential election is meant to be above the fray of party politics but the three-way race has been anything but

A three-way electoral contest for Singapore’s largely ceremonial presidency will come to a head when voters go to the polls on September 1. The race to clinch the non-partisan office has been notable for the emphasis that presidential contenders have placed on asserting their “independence” from the city-state’s long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP).

The elected president exercises limited custodial powers as the head of state and is expected to remain above the political fray. Yet analysts have observed rising anti-establishment sentiment in the campaign, with rival candidates accusing one another of polarizing voters by attempting to politicize what is supposed to be a staid exercise in national unity.

Former deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, 66, is widely regarded as the frontrunner and choice candidate of the PAP, which does not extend official endorsements as a matter of practice. Others in the race include Ng Kok Song, 75, the former chief investment officer at sovereign wealth fund GIC, and Tan Kin Lian, 75, a former chief executive of insurer NTUC Income.

“This election has largely been driven by strong candidates with rather disparate views on the role of the presidency, [with] some unfortunately [displaying] less understanding of the office of the presidency,” said Felix Tan, a political analyst at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) about policy changes advocated on the hustings which go beyond the president’s ambit.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

State polls highlight Anwar government weakness

Voters widely reject Anwar’s corruption-tainted UMNO coalition partner while ultraconservative PAS gains more grassroots ground

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration survived a key electoral test over the weekend, losing support to a conservative opposition bloc but maintaining its incumbency of state governments in midterm polls that nonetheless served as a sobering early referendum on his nine-month-old “unity” government.

The August 12 state elections resulted in a “3-3” outcome, meaning the Pakatan Harapan-led (PH) government and right-wing opposition alliance Perikatan Nasional (PN) each clinched three states out of the six that were up for election, with the latter making significant inroads nationwide in key Malay Muslim majority constituencies.

The results had broader implications, especially for the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and its main party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which won only 19 of the 108 seats it contested. Analysts see the electoral drubbing as further proof of UMNO’s diminished role as a national political force after its previous six decades of uninterrupted rule.

Calls for reform within UMNO have resurfaced amid its lackluster performance, which saw the party’s share of seats across six states fall by more than half from 41 with no wins in Malay-majority Terengganu or Kedah. The dismal showing has stoked speculation that deputy premier Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, UMNO’s embattled president, could face a leadership challenge.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Singapore hints at global chip market rebound

Trade data from bellwether city-state point to rebound from the worst of the global electronics downturn

June marked another dismal spell for Singapore’s manufacturing sector, with factory output falling 4.9% in the ninth consecutive month of contraction. But a shallower decline in electronics saw semiconductors and components revert to positive growth, stoking optimism that the global memory chip market is beginning to recover.

Data released by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) on July 26 showed electronics output contracting by 2.9% in June versus minus-23.7% in May. Though the numbers showed year-on-year declines for all clusters except transport engineering, electronic modules and components and semiconductors grew 7.5% and 3.1% year on year respectively.

The publication of Singapore’s factory results was coincident with an announcement by South Korea’s SK Hynix, the world’s second-biggest memory-chip maker, which said it saw early signs of the chip sector beginning to recover from a deep downturn amid robust demand for artificial-intelligence (AI) capacity, with rising interest in OpenAI’s ChatGPT seen as the main driver of demand.

“The worst of the global electronics downturn may be behind us,” said senior economists Chua Hak Bin and Brian Lee Shun Rong of Maybank Investment Banking Group. “A modest export boost from China’s reopening and possible stabilization in global electronics demand” could bring about a fourth-quarter manufacturing recovery in Singapore, they said in a research note sent to Asia Times.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Flagging ringgit bodes ill for Malaysia’s Anwar

Local currency tumbles amid rising investor perceptions ‘unity’ government hasn’t kept its word on reforming the economy

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim began his tenure with a pledge to enact structural reforms and boost investor confidence in Malaysia. But after eight months on the job, the veteran politician is finding it hard to pull the Southeast Asian nation out of a years-long economic funk.

The local stock market saw foreign outflows of 4.19 billion ringgit (US$920 million) in the first half of 2023, with a benchmark gauge that is among the worst global performers so far this year. The Malaysian ringgit has likewise tumbled, making it among the worst performers in Asia’s currency markets.

On the other hand, Malaysia’s economy grew above market expectations at 5.6% in the first quarter of the year, during which approved foreign direct investment (FDI) reportedly rose 60% year-on-year to 71.4 billion ringgit. Inflation moderated to a one-year low with the consumer price index coming in at 2.8% in May compared to last year, its slowest monthly pace in 2023.

Yet cost-of-living pressures and political dissatisfaction persists, with economic headwinds and external cyclical factors weighing on the government ahead of state elections in August that are seen as an early referendum on Anwar’s “unity” government, a multi-party alliance that sits uneasily with the long-rivaled political camps’ grassroots support bases.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.