Senator Abdul Wahid Omar is not your typical politician. The ninth of 11 children, he comes from a humble background, and was poached by prime minister Najib Razak to join his team with no prior political experience. Sixteen months into the job, Mr Omar is determined to extricate Malaysia from an 18-year middle-income trap.
Malaysia’s ethnic and religious tensions could complicate things. The New Economic Policy, the preferential economic policy for ethnic Malay people, was launched in 1971 and is still a source of unease. Large Chinese and Indian populations have sometimes felt excluded.
