The real reason Dr M is taking on the Sultan of Johor

Dr Mustafa Izzudin from the University Scholars Programme at NUS observed that the real takeaway from the spat between Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Johor’s ruler, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, over a surge in Chinese investment into Malaysia, is quite how deeply entrenched racialised politics has become in Malaysia, and that with elections looming, all parties are likely to ramp up the racial and religious undertones of their campaigns to garner votes. That, in turn, suggests a likely rise in monarchical activism as a vanguard against the ethno-religious polarisation of state-society relations.

• TODAY, 24 January 2017, p20-21