This Year in Asia: our most popular stories from 2018

What links the ‘hidden’ sex and sleaze on Singapore’s Orchard Road to Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal, copycat retailers and a debate over the ethnicity of a Filipino Miss Universe? Answer: they’re all among the most popular stories that featured in This Week in Asia in 2018.

With the holiday period upon us, the This Week in Asia editors thought it was high time to reflect on the stories that you, the reader, found most interesting during what has been an action-packed year. And what we found was a surprisingly eclectic mix, spanning Malaysian politics to dating habits in Singapore. So if you’re feeling reflective as 2019 comes rolling in, sit back, grab a snack and take a browse. Happy reading – and a Happy New Year!

One story dominated 2018 like no other: the Malaysian election. The story of the nonagenarian former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad returning to power and ending the Barisan Nasional’s decades-long grip on power clearly transfixed readers, accounting for about half of the stories in our top 20 list.

Whether it was the run-up to the vote, the role played by former South China Morning Post owner Robert Kuok, live coverage of the event itself, or the analysis of the aftermath, this was one story that really had legs.