COMMENT | As the year closes and the mother of all elections lurks around the corner, the best we can hope for in the coming year is that our luck holds out, rationality prevails and that the young people of Malaysia finally decide in huge numbers to shape the direction of this country.

In no particular order, here are my picks of five news stories of the year:

1. The Tahfiz school fire

Twenty-one children and two adults died in a building deemed by the state to be a fire hazard. The perpetrators of the arson – young adults – apparently have been brought to some kind of justice, but the moral of the story is that if your fire hazard of a religious school burns down, it is not the fault of the operators of the school. It is not the fault of the state or any enforcement agencies meant to ensure the safety of young students who go there for a religious education. The moral of the story is that the federal government gives you more money, even if ministers in the said government have claimed in the press that monies for these schools “have not been properly used”.

From my vantage point: “The deaths of 21 children and two adults seems an obscene moment to remind Malaysians of the separation of powers between the federal government and state religious authorities. Obscene but predictable. Apparently, in Malaysia, the only time there is separation between mosque and federal power is when children die in a fire.”

The cover-up of Wang Kelian

The recent expose by the New Straits Times about the possible conspiracy of a cover-up of these mass murders and the unbelievable response of the state to the questions raised, demonstrates that the state security apparatus is in dire need of a total overhaul. This will never happen, of course...