A social media post by Malaysian minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz about enjoying an early morning run in Sabah has reignited a debate over whether the Southeast Asian nation is in the “wrong” time zone.
Although Kuala Lumpur and Singapore lie on roughly the same longitude as Bangkok and Jakarta, they run an hour ahead on the clock, aligned with Manila, a city far to the east. This artificial shift to GMT+8 pushes sunrise in peninsular Malaysia to around 7am, much later than Jakarta’s 5.30am or Manila’s 6am, where the local time more closely tracks the position of the sun. Critics argue this limits morning daylight and disrupts circadian rhythms.
