Threads Pulling Loose
Issue 57 — Key Developments Across Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia
Editor’s Note
by by Siu Tzyy Wei, Lead Editor - Maritime Crescent Desk
Some threads fray quietly long before the fabric gives way.
In Johor, voters tested the seams of Malaysia’s political coalitions ahead of a general election still to come. In Brunei, a wage gap wide enough to send jobseekers into Australia’s fruit fields is pulling at a labour system already stretched thin. In Indonesia, prosecutors, police and now soldiers are yanking at the same thread of corruption enforcement, each pulling to protect their own.
None of these threads have snapped yet, but pull on enough of them, and the pattern starts to come undone.
Malaysia 🇲🇾
The Johor Test
by Sydney Gan, in Kuala Lumpur
Barisan Nasional (BN) has officially won the Johor state election held on 11 July 2026, securing a total of 48 out of 56 seats to form a simple majority state government. This victory boosts BN as a strong contender in the upcoming state and federal elections, while increasing pressure on Pakatan Harapan (PH) to rebuild its urban, non-Malay support, as BN’s Malay-coalition power aggregates.
While BN was naturally expected to win, with Johor deemed its birthplace, the scale of victory is significant. Johor serves as an important litmus test of whether BN could rebuild its political power to what it once was. The results have strengthened BN’s bargaining position within the federal government and provided political momentum for BN ahead of the Negeri Sembilan elections. It also demonstrates the Malay voter base as its traditional stronghold, with high turnout in BN-dominated areas, and a continued confidence in BN’s results-oriented leadership in the state, especially with Onn Hafiz on the helm as Menteri Besar.
Opposition coalition Perikatan Nasional (PN) failed to retain the three seats it won in 2022, with BN reclaiming Bukit Kepong, Maharani and Endau. The result suggests that the fallout between Bersatu and Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) has pushed a significant share of Malay support back towards BN. This was reinforced by PAS’s call for its supporters to back BN in constituencies where PN was not contesting. The outcome strengthens the narrative of Malay-majority consolidation, which poses one of the most significant long-term threats to Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition government. Similar political arrangements between BN and PAS may emerge in future state and federal elections.
Pakatan Harapan (PH) managed to retain several core Chinese strongholds, including Bentayan, Skudai, Penggaram, Mengkibol and Senai. It also retained Malay seat representation through Amanah in Simpang Jeram and PKR in Puteri Wangsa. However, PH has demonstrated weakness in securing mixed constituencies, as non-Malay confidence in parties such as Democratic Action Party (DAP) visibly wanes. This was compounded by lower turnout in minority-heavy seats such as Perling, Tangkak and Bekok, where participation fell below 60%. The result follows PH’s setback in Sabah, where it failed to win any seats despite previously holding six. Although Bersama failed to secure sufficient support and all its candidates lost their deposits, PH has accused the party of splitting the opposition vote in constituencies such as Perling and Bukit Batu. Bersama’s presence may therefore have indirectly strengthened BN by fragmenting anti-BN support – a trend that may be noted across upcoming state pollings as well.
The stability of the federal unity government will depend on the ability of Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Anwar Ibrahim to separate state-level competition from federal cooperation. Zahid has reaffirmed BN’s commitment to the unity government, but BN’s stronger political position may lead it to demand greater power at the federal level. The Negeri Sembilan election, expected on 1 August, will be the next major test. Unlike Johor, Negeri Sembilan is jointly governed by PH and BN, with PH holding the leading position.
Sydney holds a Bachelor of Laws from King’s College London, where she focused on Human Rights Law, Criminology, and Public & Administrative Law. She is an Analyst at Asia Group Advisors, providing policy analysis and strategic guidance across the tech, sustainability, and gaming sectors in Southeast Asia. Prior to joining AGA, she worked in the social development sector in London, contributing to the Ukraine Judicial Training Programme through research on war crimes adjudication and the development of a legal training curriculum with high court magistrates.
Brunei Darussalam 🇧🇳
The Fine Print Comes Due
by Maryam Zulaidi
The lack of career advancements, job opportunities and vacancies among Bruneians has left many frustrated especially amid the rising cost of living. Indiscriminately between pursuers of higher education and those without a degree, such a reality has pushed many to migrate overseas in search of opportunities to better their standard of living, and for some, to send back remittances to their families at home. On the surface, this brain drain might seem harmless.
Given Brunei’s relatively high proportion of educated citizens, one may assume these emigrants are taking up professional or tertiary-sector roles abroad. However, that is simply not the case. According to accounts circulating in Bruneian online communities, many are instead opting to do manual labour; fruit picking in Australia being a popular choice. With an estimated earning of approximately AUD1,200 per week, individuals can accumulate a total of AUD5,000 per month - and reportedly untaxed, since the work is undeclared. This contrasts the minimum wage a civil servant earns per month in Brunei, which is BND500 (roughly AUD560), therefore appealing to local jobseekers. It is important to note that these figures are solely anecdotal, sourced to personal testimony rather than official data, but the pattern described is consistent enough across accounts to be worth taking seriously.
The Bruneian passport grants easy, low-friction entry to Australia via the ETA Subclass 601, where a visitor is permitted to stay for no longer than 3 months. Additionally, Brunei also qualifies for the Frequent Traveller stream of the standard visitor visa Subclass 600, which extends up to 10 years of multi-entry access also capped at 3 months per stay. Both visa types strictly mention the prohibition of business visitors to work or offer services to another individual, enterprise or organisation. From the same community thread, this isn’t a one-off overstay pattern but rather, a cycle. An increasing number of people work through the three-month visa window, fly home once it lapses, temporarily stay in Brunei, then return to Australia and then repeat.
Constant violations of the Australian Immigration Laws prompts visas to be cancelled under Section 116 of the Migration Act 1958. Thus, it will only make the visa process for ordinary Bruneian travellers — including students, graduates and families going on holiday — more tedious. If this work is normalised in the Bruneian society, genuine travellers are to bear the costs of a problem they take no part in as well as a possible strain to the bilateral relations. Yet not everyone in these communities is untroubled by the practice, pushback against those who encourage it suggests even Bruneians abroad know the loophole won’t hold.
Maryam is a first-year International Relations and Politics student at the University of Sheffield, with an academic focus on Southeast Asia—particularly Maritime Southeast Asia—and the Middle East. She aspires to a career in diplomacy and academia and is committed to fostering international dialogue and advancing scholarly engagement with global issues. Beyond her academic work, she pursues creative interests and voluntary initiatives that broaden her perspectives on public service.
Indonesia 🇮🇩
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
by Rayhan Prabu Kusumo, in Jakarta
On the night of July 8, soldiers with long rifles took up posts at the gate of a house in Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta belonging to Febrie Adriansyah, the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes. Forty kilometres away, at a second house he owns in Bogor, police were pulling seventy-four kilograms of gold and foreign cash worth 476 billion rupiah from a safe behind a wall. A week earlier, his office had named an active police general a suspect in the school-meals graft case.
Indonesia does not run one anti-corruption effort. The police, the prosecutors, and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) can each pursue graft, and no clear rule decides who handles whom. For years the KPK was the strongest. After its powers were cut back in 2019, the prosecutors’ special-crimes unit became the aggressive arm, taking apart case after case, while the police kept theirs too.
When one of these bodies moves on the other’s people, the other can move back, because nothing above them settles the order. This is not new. A decade ago the KPK and the police fought openly, the small agency against the big one, and the public called it “the gecko against the crocodile.”
When the enforcers fight each other, enforcement itself becomes the weapon, and that is the damage. Every move against corruption can now be read two ways at once, as a genuine case or as a reply to one, and the public has no way to separate them. Most are probably both, which is precisely the problem, because the ambiguity never resolves.
The sequence teaches every official the same lesson, that the way to blunt an investigation is to open one of your own. A corruption case stops turning on evidence and starts turning on which institution moves first, and which has the heavier force behind it. The people who ought to fear these agencies are the corrupt. Instead the agencies fear each other.
For the ordinary citizen, the turf war itself is not the real worry. The state’s instruments of force, the police, the prosecutors, and now the army, no longer stand neutral above the citizen. Each answers to its own interest, and each can aim coercive power at the others. The promise of law is that it falls the same on everyone, enforced by a state that sits outside the quarrel. When the enforcers are themselves the quarrel, that promise thins, because which case is chased and which is buried starts to depend on alliances no outsider can see.
And when soldiers become one of the parties, the line drawn in 1998 - where the military stays out of civilian affairs - is being redrawn quietly. When the next big case disappears, the question will be whether it lacked evidence or protected the wrong people. In the old story, the three kingdoms fought until the country was exhausted, and a fourth power inherited the ruins. Today, the kingdoms here are still fighting, and the ruins would be inherited by ordinary Indonesians.
Rayhan has a background in government affairs and public policy, with experience across government institutions and advisory firms. His work focuses on the intersection of geopolitics, policy, and risk, with expertise in advocacy, regulatory analysis, and stakeholder engagement. He holds a degree in Government from Universitas Padjadjaran, and has completed an exchange at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain, focusing on global politics and sustainability.
Editorial Deadline 11/07/2026 11:59 PM (UTC +8)
