"Political Change in Malaysia and Singapore: A Personal Reflection"

Speaker:

PhD. James Chin (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak institute of East Asian Studies,Director)

Date&Time:

15:00-16:30, June 9 (Fri), 2006

Venue:

Room 207, East Building of CSEAS

Malaysia and Singapore were both British colonies and in the early 1960s were founding members of the Federation of Malaysia. After Singapore was kicked out of the Federation in 1965, both nations undertook very different development strategies. Singapore prides itself with the meritocracy policy while Malaysia instituted affirmative policies to cement Malay political supremacy. The political leadership in both countries are now in the hands of a "newgeneration" with Abdullah Badawi in Malaysia and Hsien Loong in Singapore. What does this mean for the future of both countries? Will the "democratic wave" hit these two countries? Are we likely to see more democracy and transparency? Or are we going to see a continuation of soft-authoritarianism?