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Ceritalah | One year on, Pakatan Harapan still grappling with realities of delivering shared prosperity in ‘new Malaysia’
- As the country has adjusted to an administration full of untested leaders, many Malaysians have begun to question the effectiveness of the new team
- Can its progressive future survive encroaching conservatism and the current administration’s squabbling and incompetence?
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Euphoria over the surprise victory of the Mahathir Mohamad-led Pakatan Harapan coalition in Malaysia’s elections last year has been swiftly replaced by surprisingly bitter disappointment
For the past two months, Team Ceritalah has been criss-crossing the country: everywhere from Kuala Kangsar to Penampang. It’s been a Herculean effort for the young team: listening to and recording stories on the ground. We tried to revisit all the people we interviewed before last year’s polls.
Team Ceritalah aren’t pollsters. We weren’t trying to do a scientific survey. Rather, we sought to take a snapshot of a country coming to terms with both immense change and the more mundane challenges of making a living.
Those closest to the land – oil palm and rubber smallholders as well as rice farmers – have been the most frustrated. Their opinion matters because agriculture still provides employment for some 6 per cent of working Malaysians.
In Sekinchan – Selangor’s rice-bowl – “Abang” Zaki has had to deal with an inexplicable disease that has threatened his rice crop. Meanwhile, for Ah Seng, a 50-something rubber tapper outside the royal town of Kuala Kangsar, low commodity prices have made his work almost futile. Understandably, all five of his adult children work in Singapore.
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