Vote puts Anwar’s takeover bluff to bed in Malaysia

PM Muhyiddin Yassin sees down opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's challenge in what was billed as a make-or-break budget vote

With his political survival on the line, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin overcame a key hurdle when lawmakers approved on November 26 his government’s expansionary 2021 budget, the first in a series of votes that will ultimately determine whether the spending plan is passed.

By failing to seize a golden opportunity to put the spending bill through a formal count in Parliament, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim dismayed his supporters and had little to show for his oft-repeated claims of commanding the parliamentary numbers needed to bring down Muhyiddin’s nine-month-old government.

Passage of the 322.5 billion ringgit (US$78 billion) annual budget, the nation’s largest-ever at 20.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), had been in question with legislators on both sides of the aisle – including those within the premier’s ruling Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration and its allies – voicing opposition to various components of the spending proposal.

Pitched as essential to the nation’s post-pandemic economic recovery, the budget ultimately passed in a voice vote in the policy stage of the voting process. Prior to its approval, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz announced last-minute concessions aimed at meeting certain government backbencher demands.

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.

How China won and US lost the trade war

RCEP trade pact marks beginning of China's and end of America's centrality in Asia-Pacific trade

Signed and sealed in a video conference ceremony after nearly eight years of grueling negotiations, the world’s largest free trade bloc was forged on November 15 in a show of collective defiance against protectionism that sets the stage for China to supplant the United States as the Asia-Pacific’s main trade engine.

Proclaimed as a win for the multilateral trading system, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) harmonizes regulatory standards and allows member countries to offer themselves as an integrated market for investment, providing a confidence boost to aid a regionwide post-pandemic recovery.

Apart from the promised benefits of trade liberalization, the RCEP has been acknowledged more for its symbolic significance in relation to the world’s two largest economies, only one of which is a signatory to the deal. China’s inclusion in the pact will expand its economic reach and arguably help to solidify its position as a standard-bearer for globalization.

“What the RCEP clearly does is entrench China as the leading player within the free trade architecture of the Asia-Pacific, and it comes at a time when the United States is painted as a regressive force on free trade under Donald Trump,” said Harrison Cheng, an associate director with consulting firm Control Risks.

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.

Muhyiddin faces make or break budget vote

Crucial vote in coming days will double as a no-confidence motion that could upend Malaysian leader's eight-month-old rule

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will face a political moment of truth when Malaysian lawmakers vote on proposals for the nation’s largest-ever annual budget in Parliament later this month. A defeat of the spending plan would be equivalent to a no-confidence vote and could plunge the country into a leadership crisis.

Muhyiddin’s eight-month-old government intends to spend a record 322.5 billion ringgit (US$78 billion) in 2021 as it seeks to offset the economic ill-effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and bring Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy back from the brink after gross domestic product (GDP) plunged 17.1% year on year in the second quarter.

The expansionary budget, a 2.5% increase in spending from 2020, aims to hasten an already evident recovery from the worst effects of business activity restrictions enacted under an earlier nationwide lockdown. Third quarter data announced by Malaysia’s central bank on Friday (November 13) showed a smaller 2.7% contraction.

A resurgence of coronavirus infections since September has seen infections triple to nearly 44,000 cases. Authorities have in response imposed targeted movement curbs in parts of the country, threatening an economic turnaround that the budget, the first to be presented since Muhyiddin was appointed premier by the nation’s king in March, is designed to spur.

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.

Southeast Asia eyes US democracy stress test

Region looks on as contested election underscores notion America's political system is broken and US leadership is in decline

A bitterly contested US presidential election that is still too close to call has the world on tenterhooks. In Southeast Asia, a strategic region at the center of an escalating rivalry between the United States and China, the contest is being closely watched for signals of what the next four years of American foreign policy will bring.

Mail-in ballots continue to be counted in crucial battleground states, which have given Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, 77, a clearer path to victory in a knife’s edge election that has failed to deliver the clear repudiation of US President Donald Trump that Democrats had hoped for and national polling had projected.

In a break with presidential norms, Trump, 74, pre-emptively declared victory at the White House in the early hours of November 4 with millions of votes yet to be counted, repeating assertions made throughout the campaign that widespread mail-in voting motivated by the Covid-19 pandemic would lead to rampant voter fraud without presenting evidence.

State-by-state litigation could bring days or possibly weeks of legal uncertainty in an attempt by the president to push the US Supreme Court to weigh in on the race if he is unable to eke out a path to victory as he did in 2016. An eruption of violent protests and civil unrest over disputed election results could occur amid the uncertainty.

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.