In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

The Jakarta gubernatorial election on July 11 was arguably Indonesia’s single most important ballot before the 2014 presidential polls. With high stakes for the parties jockeying for a win, the race saw political heavyweights vying for the attention of the city’s 7 million voters.

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Tracing the complicated web of procurement scandals in the Indonesian media over the past few months, it has been hard to remain upbeat about the country’s fight against corruption. But among the gloomy headlines, The Asia Foundation was glad to find a glimmer of hope in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

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The Philippine Judiciary is on edge. Five months of rigorous scrutiny by the public and media as a result of the trial of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona created a high degree of expectation that major reforms are forthcoming.

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At the end of a sabbatical team-teaching one course and blogging weekly, I am eager to get back to my work on the ground in the Philippines. At the end of this “Representative Professor” series, it’s interesting to look back at both what I’ve written and some of what has transpired in the past four months.

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The issue of corruption in the Philippines has once again hit international newspapers with reports that the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Renato Corona (currently undergoing an impeachment trial before the Philippine Senate), had dozens of dollar accounts…

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Real GDP growth in Malaysia has slowed considerably over the past decade and domestic investment, measured as a percentage of GDP, has also decreased. These trends raise doubts about whether Malaysia can attain its goal of reaching developed nation status by the year 2020…

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On April 28, Bersih 3.0 – a movement in Malaysia that is supported by 64 NGOs as well as the opposition party components – organized what turned out to be the largest street demonstration in Malaysia in a decade. Bersih in Malay means clean, and tens of thousands of Malaysians thronged the streets…

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The roads leading to the Kuala Lumpur’s Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) were jammed with people instead of cars on Saturday, April 28. Easily tens of thousands, though later estimates put the total figure somewhere between 200 to 300,000…

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In February, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court struck down a controversial clause of the Forestry Law which had enabled the national government to declare the boundaries of the state forest zone without a proper mapping process. The Ministry of Forestry controls a state forest zone of 133 million hectares…

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With presidential elections set for March 17, followed by parliamentary elections in June, Timor-Leste is now in full political campaign mode. Some prominent figures in the country will compete for the post in Saturday’s presidential election, including incumbent president Jose Ramos Horta; the just-resigned commander of the armed forces, Taur Matan Ruak; Vice Prime Minister Jose Luis Guterres; the sitting president of the National Parliament, Fernando Lasama; and Lu Olo, the president of the main opposition party FRETLIN.

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