newsmaker n. One whose actions consistently make news headlines, who effects the course of public discourse and creates an impact in Malaysian politics, for better or worse.

2009 was a tumultuous year. A rousingly colourful collage of days that saw the fulfilment of changes made imminent and the culmination of troubles long brewing. A bevy of events, stirred up and brought to be, by last year’s political tsunami.

In politics, we had the involuntary sneeze-change of prime ministers, the knee-jerks of crises in the ruling coalition’s component parties, Barisan Nasional’s takeover of Perak, and an apparent attempt at a coup in Selangor...