The New Nation-State: Heritage and Challenges

The year 2018 was a turning point for Malaysia, when the alliance that had governed the country since independence in 1957 was at last overthrown. The Pakatan Harapan (PH— Alliance of Hope) Government is not new, in the sense that the man leading it is none other than Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir had previously served as Prime Minister from 1981 to 2003, and he came out of retirement at 92 years of age to fight an election under a new party against his former party. His political comeback was undoubtedly one of the most important political events in 2018 for the whole Asia region. One year after regime change, there is a sense that many of the core issues facing Malaysia during the six-decade rule of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), namely religious and ethnic tensions, remain unresolved.