Asia | Banyan

Malaysia’s politics are rotten from the top

Ordinary Malaysians suffer from the machinations of their politicians

IN KUALA LUMPUR, the chief city, as elsewhere in Malaysia, white flags hang from windows—cries of help from households for whom the pandemic has brought economic distress and even too little to eat. For the relatively prosperous country’s success in handling the coronavirus in 2020 has turned to calamity this year, with over 1.1m infections and a tardy roll-out of vaccines.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Flagging enthusiasm”

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