Leaving Malaysia tomorrow. I got to go down to Malacca today, about 2 hours south of Kuala Lumpur, and have a bunch of photos from that below. Yesterday, we were able to interview Zaid Ibrahim, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of legal affairs and judicial reform. He was previously a prominent reformer whom was critical of Prime Minister Badawi, and was brought on with a mandate to reform the Malaysian judiciary system, following the March elections. He is the author of "In Good Faith" which I was able to read portions of before the interview. In the book, he presents Malaysia as unique among the countries in promoting a pluralistic democracy, while being a muslim-majority nation. I asked him a question about the two forces that he wrote about, globalization and religious extremism, that were the obstacles of Malaysia in keeping their pluralistic democracy together, and what the current landscape looked like in that regards, for Malaysia currently.

In regards to religious extremism, thought the March elections weree encouraging in that regard, as the many different religious & ethnic groups came together, albeit in opposition to the ruling coalition, and put aside religious differences in favor of a common goal.

So the question was raised, whether Malaysian politics is transitioning, from a race-based to a class-based political coalitions. Zaid didn't see it that way, replying that "there's a lot more to it than that." Rather, that the economic situation was still relatively good in Malaysia, and that the driving force behind the defeat was a public desire for reform of the corruption & nepotism in the country. Alongside more transparency, he thought that the government would then win back the popular support.

Enter his role, which is to reform the judiciary system of Malaysia. I asked him what that meant, in terms of defining a success, and how long a time-frame he thought it would take. He replied that there needed to be more of a transparent criteria of selecting judges, and whom then write laws that are more sound to interpretation. It seemed rather vague, and I got the sense that the reform was more about getting rid of the current system that's based on patronage and replace it with one based on good governance. He was reluctant to give a time from, but then mentioned "give us six months" and you'll be able to see the results of the reform.

I don't have a good enough sense of the political landscape to know if the mandate of reform that PM Badawi has instituted is actually the agenda of the populace that voted against the ruling party in March, or if this agenda of reform something that Badawi had been stalled in doing previously, in 2004, that he's now taken on as an opportunity to finish the job.

Here's a slideshow from the flickr page of some photos that I've taken while here in Malaysia.

About half of the photos are taken in Malacca, which is about 2 hours south of Kuala Lumpur. You really get a sense of the diversity in Malaysia, in this old city. Walking along one of the streets, we passed a Chinese temple, then a Hindu temple, a Mosque and then a Buddhist temple. What a place.