In this webinar, Dr Tricia Yeo and Dr Nungsari A Radhi shared their views on the Anwar Ibrahim administration’s institutional and economic performance over the past year.
MALAYSIA STUDIES PROGRAMME WEBINAR
Tuesday, 5 December 2023 – With Malaysia’s Unity government being in power for a year, the Malaysia Studies Programme at ISEAS organised a webinar to examine and assess the Anwar administration’s year in power and the Madani framework. Guest speakers Dr Tricia Yeoh, CEO of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) Malaysia, and Dr Nungsari A Radhi, economist and a member of the Advisory Committee to the Finance Minister (ACFIN), assessed the state of political, institutional, and economic reforms.
Bearing in mind the nature of the current government being a “coalition of coalitions”, Dr Tricia Yeoh evaluated the successes and shortcomings of institutional and political reforms based on the Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN)’s manifesto commitments. Dr Yeoh noted that while early signals were positive, pressure from coalition partners made reform difficult. Key issues over which the government reversed its position include the political appointments to Government Linked Companies (GLCs) and the use of the Sedition Act. Furthermore, many points in PH’s manifesto are legislative in nature which require time for consultation, drafting, and bringing to parliament. Nonetheless, there have been positive moves such as the public finance and fiscal responsibility act and the beneficial ownership amendment where owners of company shares need to specify who the ultimate owner is to address problems of proxies. Dr Yeo emphasised that the current time is the right time for reforms, specifically the much-needed economic and political financing reforms, though the cabinet reshuffle would slow down anything put on the table. Summing up, Dr Yeo provided an overview of factors that influence the pace of reforms which range from civil society to international pressure, from race and religion to patronage and influence.
Shifting gears to economic policies and reforms, Dr Nungsari drew attention to the economic challenges that the Anwar-led government has faced since it took power. Short-term challenges include inflationary pressures on small businesses resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war on Ukraine; long-term factors include the low-wage regime and the cyclical impact of the economy losing vigour following a crisis (as in the post-Asian Financial Crisis and post-2008 years). In the face of these challenges, Dr Nungsari suggested that Madani is just a label that emphasises the normative underpinnings of social justice. He highlighted the need to address inequality, mobility, target labour share of income and build fiscal space. Dr Nungsari pointed out that the government needs to sort out priorities for transition before it can work on plugging the country into regional economic integration, for which it needs to have a more clearly defined value proposition to attract investors. Looking ahead, Dr Nungsari said that the Unity government needs to sort out finances to demonstrate credibility, have greater clarity on the energy transition roadmap and tackle inequality.
The webinar proceeded to a Q&A session. Both speakers fielded questions covering the impacts of moving away from a sectoral approach under the New Industrial Master Plan (NIMP), and the influence of external agreements on domestic reform, such as reforming state-owned enterprises and GLCs. Dr Cassey Lee, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Regional Economic Studies programme, moderated this webinar, which was attended by 61 people.