-
Dec 23, 2024 | 
newmandala.org | Liam Gammon
Dear readersThis is just a short and sweet message to let you know that New Mandala is taking a break for the Australian Christmas and New Year holidays and will resume publishing after 20 January 2025. I want to extend my most sincere thanks to everybody who had a role in keeping New Mandala an essential space for accessible scholarly analysis of Southeast Asia in 2024.
-
Jul 23, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Julian Dierkes |Liam Gammon |Ashima Goyal |Paul Chambers
Mongolia held its ninth parliamentary election since its 1990 democratic revolution on 28 June 2024, giving the ruling Mongolian People’s Party a narrow majority in the newly-enlarged parliament with 68 of 126 seats. Despite voter frustration with politics and governance, discontent was not strong enough to bring other parties to power. Democracies around the world are facing the challenge of democratic backsliding.
-
Jul 21, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Liam Gammon |Paul Chambers |David McNeill
The orderly transition of power to a duly elected leader is a, if not the, hallmark of a well-functioning democracy. As if setting a template for Donald Trump to follow, Prabowo Subianto reacted to his loss in two straight presidential elections to Joko Widodo in 2014 and 2019 by declaring himself the victim of electoral fraud and refusing to accept the results.
-
Jul 21, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Liam Gammon |Paul Chambers |David McNeill |Yiping Huang
Indonesia is now seeing a handover of political power far more stage-managed than ever before in its post-democratic history, as President Joko Widodo and Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto sustain the alliance that helped the former special forces general win an historic landslide in the February 2024 presidential elections by posing as Widodo’s natural heir. Prabowo has locked in this dominance by building an unprecedentedly broad party coalition ahead of his inauguration on 20 October.
-
Mar 24, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Erin Murphy |Jayant Menon |Walter Brenno Colnaghi |Liam Gammon
As last week’s virtual IPEF ministers’ meeting in Thailand reminded everyone, negotiators for the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) face an uphill battle to fully conclude the framework and implement key agreements before the US presidential election in November to ensure its durability.
-
Mar 19, 2024 | 
channelnewsasia.com | Liam Gammon
CANBERRA: In the end, Prabowo Subianto got the cake, albeit without the icing, in Indonesia’s presidential election on Feb 14. The official tally, to be announced on Wednesday (Mar 20), looks set to confirm an unprecedented landslide for an incoming Indonesian president, with Prabowo having won 58 per cent of the vote in a three-way race, far exceeding the 50 per cent threshold required to avoid a runoff with his two rivals.
-
Mar 17, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Liam Gammon |Minglei Wang |Jeffrey Gil |Nicholas Godfrey
The ASEAN–Australia special summit hosted earlier this month by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Melbourne cleared the bar for success that Australia’s press and foreign policy commentariat apply to these sorts of things.
-
Mar 17, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Liam Gammon |Minglei Wang |Jeffrey Gil |Nicholas Godfrey
In the end, Prabowo Subianto got the cake, albeit without the icing, in Indonesia’s presidential election on 14 February. The official tally, to be announced 20 March, looks set to confirm an unprecedented landslide for an incoming Indonesian president, with Prabowo having won 58 per cent of the vote in a three-way race, far exceeding the 50 per cent threshold required to avoid a runoff with his two rivals.
-
Feb 20, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Michael Kabuni |Imtiaz Gul |Liam Gammon |Muhammad Rafi Bakri
When the Papua New Guinean (PNG) parliament convened on 13 February 2024, the opposition submitted a notice for vote of no confidence against Prime Minister James Marape, naming East Sepik Governor Allan Bird as an alternate prime minister. The government is seeking a Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution on whether the prime minister candidate is restricted to party leaders or Members of Parliament (MPs) affiliated to a political party. Allan Bird is an independent MP.
-
Feb 17, 2024 | 
eastasiaforum.org | Alexander R Arifianto |Shankaran Nambiar |Aristyo Rizka Darmawan |Liam Gammon
After nearly four years of preparation and four long months of intense campaigning, the Indonesian presidential election finally took place on 14 February 2024. It resulted in a landslide victory for President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s favoured candidate, Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia’s defence minister and a former army general who served under the country’s late dictator, Suharto.
