But soon after Mahathir Mohamad and the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition came to power, the Malaysian government said the project “would need to be renegotiated”, and wanted to revisit the costs of the ECRL. On the eve of his first visit to China as prime minister, the government instructed the CCCC — the firm contracted to carry out construction — to pause all work.

"We do not want a situation where a poor country experiences neo-colonialism because it cannot compete with rich countries,” said Mahatir during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強).

Management at CCCC started to worry about cost delays, and how a suspension would impact more than two thousand workers. Initium Media tried to contact local employees, but only one Malaysian worker responded: “Our head office warned us not to speak to external parties.”

ECONOMIC BENEFITS OR A PARTISAN STRUGGLE?

But how do Malaysians feel about the East Coast Rail Link? We visited Bentong, a major stop on the future line, and spoke with residents about the project.

“The Bentong section is over 20 percent complete, making it the section with the fastest progress,” says Wang LI (王力) a local reporter familiar with the ECRL’s situation. Wang has invited us and several of his friends to a local restaurant to drink tea and talk about the ECRL. When asked if the ECRL construction has benefited locals in Bentong, everyone nods approvingly.

“My restaurant is deserted now that ECRL construction is suspended, no one comes any more,” says Mr. Li, whose family runs the restaurant.

Another guest, Mr. Ye, says the roads from Bentong to Kuala Lumpur are unsafe, and there are one to two accidents on it every week. When the East Coast Rail Link is complete, it will shorten the time to get to the capital, and be a safer route.

Wang adds that the ECRL is not a partisan issue, and that MPs in both the ruling coalition and the opposition support the project. “Even Wong Tack (黃德), an environmentalist and the current MP for Bentong, supports the construction. That means support for the project is truly mainstream public opinion.”

We spoke with Wong about his support for the ECRL. He says that people in Bentong are looking forward to the project, and that the government hopes to find a win-win solution. But he frets that the skyrocketing cost makes it untenable for the general public. “The total cost of the project reached 81 billion ringgit ($19.7 billion USD). Cost of construction is simply too high. It also involves land acquisition across different states,” says Wong.

But is the new ruling coalition concerned about national economic interests, or is this all about a domestic political struggle?

The primary task of Mahathir and the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition is to stabilize the economy, but they’re also looking to quash six decades of anti-democratic tendencies under the Barisan Nasional (BN) and its leading party -- the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Under the former BN government, prime minister Najib moved over 2.6 billion ringgit ($700 million USD) from the government-run 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) company to his personal account.