COMMENT | By most accounts it has been a hard year for Malaysia politically. After a peaceful election full of hope in May last year, 2019 has brought to the surface the realities of governing a polarized country full of angry mobilized citizens with high expectations and very different visions of the country they want.

Not only have the leaders clashed openly with each other in unstatesmanlike fashion – within the governing coalition and in the newly reconfigured national opposition – but the divisions in society have become heightened fault lines for mobilization of long-standing resentments, especially along ethnic lines.

By year’s end race relations are worryingly worsening and the momentum of building a ‘new’ Malaysia has not just slowed, it has morphed into a baneful sentiment of cynicism and acrimony...