A typical November update
Counting down the end of 2025.
December’s content pipeline kicks off with a News, ideas and everything in between (been a while), and clearing backlogs, that is the Khazanah series and the Q&A on the delayed climate bill.
Oh, and a feature on a major stock market operator. So I have a good week of content coming up… fingers crossed.
First, yesterday’s story, in case you missed it:
The Malaysianist runs on subscriptions. Fuel up with a monthly, annual or founding member plan.
P.S. The founding member tier doesn’t have a ceiling; you can go as high as you want — it’s the ultimate supporter badge.
And, yes, you can upgrade subscription tiers at any time.
Mulling a group purchase for family, friends and colleagues? I’ve got you. Group subscriptions come with discounts, too.
We’re down to one more month before calling it a day for 2025.
Yesterday, Sabah went to the polls and decided who would lead them for the next five years.
Borneo politics is wildly different from the peninsula. But there are certain strong developments coming out from that state worth paying attention to.
For starters, in the run-up to the polls, there was heavy focus on graft and bribery, primarily brought about by a certain businessman, Albert Tei.
This culminated in arrests by anti-corruption enforcers on Friday, when Tei and PM Anwar Ibrahim’s former aide, Shamsul Iskandar, were detained over allegations of bribes related to recovering funds distributed to Sabah assemblymen and other politicians.
Sabah decided they wanted Sabahans to lead them. So, they rejected DAP, wiping out the party in all eight seats it contested.
This was a strong signal that they didn’t want heavy Peninsular influence running their affairs.
It’s telling that the PM’s coalition, Pakatan Harapan (PH), only secured one seat —Melalap, through PKR’s Jamawi Jaafar — amid a hung assembly.
Though, I’m curious about PAS winning a state seat — a first for the Islamist party. Surely that doesn’t read like a rejection of “Peninsular politics”.
While not an outright rejection of Anwar, the results underscore voter frustration with federal ties, boosting local coalitions like Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS, 29 seats) and Warisan (25 seats).
Notably, Yamani Hafez Musa, son of controversial ex-CM and current Sabah Governor Tun Musa Aman, lost narrowly in Sindumin to Warisan by just 362 votes despite running on a PH ticket.
To say that Sabah rejected corruption is an oversimplification, as many elected leaders from GRS and Warisan have faced past allegations of graft, yet voters prioritised local autonomy over reform pledges.
Yes, Sabah leaned toward familiar, if flawed, local powerbrokers.
And while not a direct snub to Anwar, they signaled a desire for Sarawak-style concessions on resources and autonomy.
But Sabah doesn’t have Sarawak’s leverage. Sarawak holds 31 parliamentary seats. Sabah has 25.
More importantly, GPS (Sarawak’s coalition) moves as a bloc. This enables them to make or break the federal government with coordinated threats.
Could Sabah do the same? In theory, yes.
If all 25 Sabah MPs voiced their displeasure together, that would absolutely unsettle Anwar’s government.
But Sabah lawmakers have never been able to move as a cohesive unit.
The state’s parties are fragmented, prone to defections, and historically more interested in cutting individual deals than presenting a united front.
Without that bloc discipline, Sabah can’t extract the same deals that Sarawak’s been getting: the oil royalties, the infrastructure commitments, the autonomy.
But if Sabahans think this is their golden era, they should think again.
Despite the election producing a hung assembly with no party securing the 37-seat simple majority needed to govern, GRS chairman Hajiji Noor wasted no time.
He was sworn in as chief minister around 3am today, after cobbling together support from UPKO, PH, and five independents to reach the magic number.
(See, who says only entrepreneurs work weekends?)
This is the same Hajiji who allegedly abused his power to favour Farhash Wafa Salvador, another former aide of Anwar, over a mining concession.
Farhash is suing the news portal, MalaysiaNow, for defamation over a series of articles on him and his business dealings in the state.
At least 14 GRS politicians, mostly senior leaders from component parties like STAR and PBS, were implicated in corruption claims.
Tei claimed he allegedly paid bribes totalling nearly RM4 million to over a dozen GRS politicians (including ministers and assemblymen) to secure mineral exploration licences, which were later canceled.
This led to charges against at least two assemblymen and Tei himself in June.
Still, Anwar himself campaigned for Hajiji in the run-up to the state polls.
What this means is that federal politics continues to hold greater sway in Sabah and that what Sabahans thought they could get will not ever happen.
Anwar doesn’t have to worry about a unified Sabah bloc making demands the way Sarawak does.
He can continue playing Sabah’s factions against each other. Throw some development projects here, a ministry position there, keep everyone just happy enough to stay in the tent.
It’s the old playbook of divide and distribute.
Federal reform on Borneo rights will remain slow. Without real pressure from Sabah, there’s less urgency to address the structural problems that is revenue sharing, autonomy questions, and infrastructure gap.
The way I see it, this state election result reinforces the worst instincts in Malaysian politics.
Sabahans voted for familiar faces with questionable records because they know the system rewards proximity to power, not always competence or integrity.
And as long as federal policymakers can count on Sabah’s political class staying fragmented and transactional, there’s little incentive to overhaul that system.
If Sabahans genuinely wanted progress and economic uplift, they would know by now that these won’t solely come from entrenched interests, especially when the state grapples with the highest poverty, some of the worst health outcomes, and lagging educational performance in the country.
While it’s right to vote against Malaya or federal interference, I’m not sure they accurately did so.
In fact, they may have just ushered in the opposite: stronger federal interference.
The main agenda
Phew, that was an oddly long preamble. But here are the stories that met November’s best-ofs — pieces that drew about 3,000 views and converted at least 10 paying subscribers (monthly/annual/founding) each:
Bank Pembangunan scales back private bets: sources
Brainjam #10: Inside Khazanah’s VC circus
KWAP’s next boss has plenty to prove
When GLICs question their legacy PE/VC bets
A former tech hotshot is back… sort of
We do have a theme here — VC, PE and GLICs — and I guess this will be what will carry the newsletter moving into 2026.
See you all tomorrow,
Emmanuel
Talk to me
Got a burning question or a tip-off? Reach me anytime at: emmanuel@themalaysianist.com