Beyond the Ballot Box

A look at the results of GE15 tells us that Malaysia is politically polarised. Pakatan Harapan won 37% of the popular vote, followed by PN with 30% and BN with 22%. In fact, Perikatan Nasional (anchored by PAS) managed to win almost the entirety of support deep in the Malay Heartland, namely the Northern and East Coast of the Peninsular. But why are we polarised? What did the progressive block do...

Now that Anwar Ibrahim has been named the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia, all eyes are on him to put his cabinet together. So, what should be taken into consideration when choosing the cabinet and will he get to stick to his principles when making his decision?  Image Credit: EPA-EFE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are a few days away from the 15th General Elections (GE15) happening on the 19th of November. So, on the show today, we’re going to be taking a look at where we are at right now – how are political parties doing on the campaign trail, what’s voter sentiment like on the ground and who could possibly emerge victorious on Saturday. Image Credit: Shutterstock and Wikimedia / Creative Commons See om...

 Malaysian politics has largely been centred around racialised narratives, which is bad in and of itself. But what’s particularly interesting is how Indians (almost similar to Orang Asal/Orang Asli) are regularly not featured even in this racialised discourse. The narrative is always Malays vs Chinese. But just how important is the Indian vote and what are the struggles the community faces? I...

People often think that democracy begins and ends at the ballot box. While elections are important -- and everyone should exercise their right to vote -- it's also equally important to understand the power you have beyond voting. On the final episode of ThinkLeft, we discuss the people's power and also how we can make Malaysia's Parliamentary system more democratic. Sivarajan Arumugam, Secretary-G...

GE15 is on the horizon. The Election Commission has announced that it will be held on the 19th of November 2022.  GE15 is going to be very different from GE14, where the narrative was anti-Najib, Anything But UMNO and toppling BN for the first time. Things are different in 2022. The political landscape has changed and so did the sentiment on the ground. So, what could the results of GE15 look...

On the 10th of October, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of Parliament. This means that GE15 will be taking place within the next 60 days. While the date has not been announced by the Election Commission yet, many Malaysians have voiced their disgruntlement towards an election being called right smack in what potentially could be a period of heavy floods across the coun...

Marxists believe that there are two classes in society – the owner class (i.e. ultra wealthy, big businesses, etc) and the working class (i.e. bottom 90% masses). But if the struggle is between two classes in society, how does the fight for women’s rights, gender equality and the likes fit into the marxist/socialist framework? We discuss with Christine Gabriel who’s a member of Parti Sosialis Mala...

Road to GE is a show that explores your power in deciding who serves you in government.  Langkah Sheraton came as a shock. Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir lost his majority when a small faction of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, defected from the party, teamed up with Bersatu (which was also part of the Pakatan Harapan coalition) and formed a new coalition with Barisan Nasional, PAS, GPS, etc to form a...

Chico Mendes, Brazilian, rubber tapper, environmentalist, trade union leader, once famously said, “ecology without class struggle is just gardening.” On this episode of ThinkLeft, we discuss capitalism as the root cause of the climate crisis, why poor countries suffer due to rich country’s greed and why class struggle and solidarity among the masses is the best way to overcome this problem. ...

Calls for a political funding/financing act have been growing louder ever since former Prime Minister Najib Razak tried to explain off millions of dollars flowing into his personal bank account as political donations from Saudi’s late king Abdullah. But the fact of the matter is, the need for a political funding act goes beyond Najib and his various corruption charges. It is about strengthening pe...

In July, Fadhlina Siddiq was elected as Ketua Wanita Keadilan (Chief of PKR’s Women’s Wing). Fadhlina is an activist-lawyer who is particularly passionate about issues concerning gender equality and equity. Despite only joining the party two years ago, Fadhlina has been a supporter for a long time now and her dad, Siddiq Fadzil was the former president of ABIM and close confidante of Anwar Ibrahim...

There was a strong leftist movement in Malaysia pre-independence. In fact, leftist parties were integral in the fight against the British and gaining independence. On this episode, we explore what role leftist parties played in the 40s and 50s and how and why they eventually got squashed. What lessons can we learn from the past? Image credit: Wikipedia See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...

The High Court has delivered its verdict on Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor’s corruption case involving a 1.25 billion ringgit solar hybrid energy project for rural schools in Sarawak, and found her guilty on all three charges. So, what does this mean for our political landscape moving forward? Joining us to unpack is Dr Oh Ei Sun, Principal Adviser, Pacific Research Center. See omnystudio.com/listener f...

A couple of days ago, the Federal Court upheld the guilty verdict in former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s SRC International case. Najib is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined 210 million ringgit. While there may be some narrow escape routes left for Najib, the fact of the matter is this: UMNO’s Kleptocrat poster boy is currently behind bars, as we head towards GE15. So, what does t...

People often think of politics as just government and the people. But another vital aspect that most people don’t think about – billionaires. Who are billionaires/ultra-wealthy and what role do they play in our society/politics? We discuss with S. Arutchelvan, Deputy Chairperson, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recently, Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Abdullah said the following in response to the Malaysia Happiness Index 2022: “We are among the happy states. Happy means that the people are satisfied, the people are happy even if there are problems. That is why we are included in the happiness index. We got a score of 7.0, slightly different from Terengganu’s 7.2. Compared to Selangor’s 5....

Road to GE is a show that explores your power in deciding who serves you in government.  On our first episode, we discuss the whole idea of going back to your hometown to vote for elections. Every time there’s an election in Malaysia, there’s talk of needing to take a couple of days off from work, traffic jams and increase in prices of flight tickets, as people rush to make it back to their h...

A lot has happened over the past four years. What has been the impact of the political turmoil of recent times, not just on democracy, but also on the everyday lives of Malaysians? In this episode we discuss a few different angles, including youth movements, voter disillusionment and anti-party hopping law. Image credit: Firdaus Latif See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve probably heard of the word ‘Bitcoin’. If you’ve paid closer attention, you might’ve also heard things like Ethereum, Ripple, Dogecoin, etc. These are all different types of Cryptocurrencies, which apparently can make you turn your RM 10 into RM 1000 over a short period of time. It’s said to be the currency of the future, one tha...

Healthcare is a human right. Yet, healthcare has become increasingly expensive over the past two to three decades. Those who can afford, take on expensive private insurances – not because they want to, but because the only other alternative would be to visit inaccessible, overcrowded, understaffed and poorly maintained public hospitals, which are bleeding specialists to the private sector – while...

Tajuddin Abdul Rahman was sacked as an UMNO supreme council member last week. A few days after that, he held a press conference, in which he spilled the tea on some inner workings of his political party, including his disdain towards his party president, and that a number of Umno MPs had signed statutory declarations (SDs) to support Anwar as prime minister in 2020. On this episode, I speak to Dr...

Karl Marx once wrote, “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” We discuss what this critique means, if it still holds true today, as well as how we can restructure our education system to benefit the masses. Image credit: Shutterstock & Wikimedia Commons...

Did you know that urban voters have less power to affect electoral change in this country than rural voters? What does this mean exactly? And how does it impact a nation where there is an increasing number of people moving to urban centres? Image credit: Djohan Shahrin/Shutterstock.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a time where working a regular 9-5 job would enable you to buy a house (at the very least a single storey landed property) and raise some kids in it, if you so desire. After all, that’s what Baby Boomers and Gen Xs did. Unfortunately, that is not the case for most millennials today, not unless they’ve inherited some family wealth. You constantly hear about the average Malaysian, even deg...