Game of Sultans

Discover the unique monarchy system of Malaysia!

👑 In this episode of Compendium Trivia, we dive into the fascinating world of Malaysia’s kings 👑—how they’re chosen, the Game of Thrones-style power plays behind the scenes, and the wild controversies that have rocked the monarchy.

❓ What’s the link between Malaysia sultan and Russian reality show?
⛳ Which king turned a golf club into a deadly weapon?

Tune in for a thrilling dive into the fascinating world of Malaysian royals! 🎙️

Transcript

The country of Malaysia has one of the most unique monarchies in the world. 

Every five years, their king is elected by nine noble sultans who choose a ruler from among themselves. 

This one-of-a-kind procedure reminds me of the voting system in Big Brother reality show, just a bit more classy and with a royal flair!

Today, we talk about the fascinating world of Malaysian kings—and the wild controversies that have surrounded some of them.

I guarantee that you’ll be pretty shocked by the end of this episode! 

Let’s dive in.

The reason Malaysia has such a unique system is actually quite simple. 

Before the creation of the modern-day Malaysia, the region was a mosaic of small independent kingdoms. 

Some of these kingdoms still exist today, but now they are united under one flag, forming the Malaysian federation.

To maintain balance among these kingdoms, the system of rotating monarchy was introduced. 

The idea behind it was that no single ruler would gain permanent control over the others.

Sounds fair, right? Ok so now let’s see how it works in practice. 

There are nine kingdoms within the Federation of Malaysia  - Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Perlis, Terengganu, Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Johor, and Perak - I don’t know about you but to me all of those names sound super cool. 

Seven of these kingdoms are ruled by the sultan, apart from Perlis which is ruled by the leader titled Rajah.

This is actually a really interesting naming convention, reflecting the diverse cultural influences that have shaped Malaysia over the centuries.

The title Sultan comes from Islamic tradition, while Raja has its roots in Indian culture so it’s a great example of how these two cultures have blended together in Malaysia which is really fascinating.

On top of that the ruler of Negeri Sembilan state is neither sultan nor rajah but he has his own unique Malaysian title Yang di-Pertuan Besar, you just gotta love the name. 

So all nine of these leaders create a Conference of Rulers, which elects a King from among them. 

Each king is elected for the fixed period of five years and once that term ends, the Conference of Rulers meet again to elect the next King for the next five years.

The most important rule of this whole system is that it follows a rotation — meaning once a state has provided a King, it cannot do it again until all the other states had their turn.

So for example, if the Sultan of Johor becomes a King, he can’t take the throne again until all other states  had their rulers elected as a king of Malaysia.

In theory, this means that each state can provide a King once every 40 years and the full cycle takes 45 years.

After that, the cycle resets, and once again, rulers of all nine states can be elected to become the next King. 

So far, Malaysia had 17 Kings, meaning that each state has provided two Kings—except for Perak, which had only one king so far.

And this means that the next King must come from the Perak state. 

Therefore the next time the Conference of Rulers votes it will be a pure formality as the result is already known, the winner will be the sultan of Perak.

So what do you think about this election system ?

In my opinion it is a fair and an elegant solution but not without its controversies, more on that later. 

Before that let’s mention that all nine monarchies that create the Conference of Rulers they have their own succession systems. 

Eight of them follow let’s say the classic model—where the oldest son becomes the next Sultan. 

Sorry, ladies but unfortunately so far Malaysia doesn’t allow female rulers at any level.

But then there’s Negeri Sembilan—you know, that one state where the ruler has that special title different than sultan. 

Turns out, this state has its own unique election system.

It looks like this state really wants to be different in everything they do. 

So instead of an succession model with the oldest son, in Negeri Sembilan the monarchy is elective. 

There are four minor chiefs in this state, called Undangs who choose the next ruler from the royal family members. 

And just to make things even more complicated, the Undangs themselves are also elected—through their own separate systems.

But let’s not go too deep into that rabbit hole , because it’s starting to feel like we are in an Inception movie with one election system nested inside another and so on … it’s just becoming too much at this point.

Before we move on to everyone’s favorite part—royal scandals and dramas—let’s take a quick look at the powers of the King of Malaysia.

If you expected Malaysia’s ruler to be some kind of a despotic jungle king, à la Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now movie, you may be disappointed.

He is a classic constitutional monarch which means that his powers are fairly limited.

He is a head of state, he appoints a prime minister from the party that won the elections.

He is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Malaysian army and also the head of Islam religion—but only in his home state and in these Malaysian states that don’t have their own monarchy.

Because yeah, this is something tat we didn’t mention yet -  remember how I said that the King is elected by the rulers of nine states? 

This is all true but Malaysia federation consists of more than just those nine states!

There are also four other states—Sarawak, Sabah, Malacca, and Penang—which do not have their own monarchies. 

That means they don’t have a Sultan or a Raja who can vote in the Conference of Rulers. 

They have only governors appointed by the king.

These governors participate in the meetings of Conference of Rulers but they have no voting rights there and they cannot be elected as a King—they’re basically just there as observers. 

And this is quite controversial and something that these states were not happy about and repeatedly protested against. 

But so far no changes have been made and the system is as it is. 

On top of that, Malaysia also has three federal territories, not states but territories. 

• Labuan – an offshore financial center.
• Kuala Lumpur – the national capital.
• Putrajaya – the federal administrative capital (yes, Malaysia has two capital cities—another cool, lesser-known fact).

These territories are directly governed by the federal government and have no representation in the Conference of Rulers—not as voters, nor even as observers. 

But this is more understandable because of the special status of these territories and this widely accepted. 

Alright, now we’re getting to everyone’s favorite part—royal controversies. 

If you enjoy following news about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s snowflake dramas, get ready because this might be the most entertaining chapter of this episode for you.

You’ll be really surprised in what kind of shit the Malaysian kings have been involved.

Compared to their British counterparts, honestly it’s on a whole other level.

Let’s start with Sultan Muhammad V. 

He married in secret the Russian beauty queen Oksana Voevodina who was a Miss Moscow in 2015. 

And what was truly scandalous was the fact that she had previously appeared on a Russian reality show, where she was caught on camera having sex with at least two different guys —including one quickie in a pool while sipping on champagne.

You can imagine how embarrassing that would be for any king’s wife, but even more so in Malaysia, which is mostly Islamic and quite conservative country.

When the news about Oksana came out the public backlash was so bad that Muhammad was forced to abdicate after serving only two years out of his five-year term.

And this made him the first and so far the only Malaysian King who stepped down.

But this is nothing, wait until your hear about the current King - sultan Ibrahim Iskandar. 

Back in the 1980s, when he was still a prince, he reportedly shot a man dead outside a nightclub yes. 

But the case was swiftly swept under the rug, and he was never convicted, like nothing happened.

Then, in 2005, he and his mates they crashed a wedding party and caused a massive brawl that left several people hospitalized and arrested. 

Once again, the whole incident was covered up, and Ibrahim walked away free man.

So Ibrahim is wild but listen about his father Mahmood who ruled in the 80s and was even more nuts.

Mahmood was officially convicted of shooting a man dead near his private helicopter.

He supposedly did it because he mistook him for a smuggler. 

Well, whatever the story was honestly it sounds a bit far fetched. 

He never faced real consequence because he was granted a royal pardon.

But it gets even worse - in another case Mahmood was further accused of causing the death of a golf boy who apparently laughed when the sultan missed a shot. 

He reportedly beat the poor guy to death with a golf club, but since he was a serving King at the time, he couldn’t be prosecuted due to royal immunity. 

So again he got away with it.

This is just some crazy shit.

In another notable example of his misbehaviour, on a slightly lighter note Mahmood locked up two policemen in a dog kennel because they had angered him. 

He also personally beat up a hockey coach after the coach spoke out about Mahmood’s son getting into a fight during a hockey match.

You really can’t make this stuff up, this guy was honestly cockoo.

So there you have it — as you can see the world of Malaysian kings is full of surprises - from their unique election system to the crazy stuff that happens to them once they actually sit on the throne. 

It feels like it's Game of Thrones at times with all this manslaughter, angry killing sprees and promiscuous beauties, only the dragons are missing.

Guys thanks a lot for listening to today’s episode, I hope you enjoyed it. 

Don’t forget to follow, subscribe, and leave a review—it really helps

And as always, stay curious.

I’ll catch you next time. 

Ciao!