In this third run for the presidency, Prabowo received 96.2 million votes, the highest received by any candidate in a democratic election in Indonesia.

The vote tally exceeded the 85.6 million votes that former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo received in the 2019 election.

Now, as 2025 begins, we take one last look at the winners and losers in the Indo-Pacific region in 2024, who had it good and who had it bad. Here is our Asia Year-in-Review 2024.

Worst year: Asia’s climate casualties

On Dec. 26, 2004, the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake centred west of northern Sumatra and the ensuing tsunami killed more than 200,000 people in a single day, with Indonesia suffering by far the most casualties.

In contrast, 2024 was a year of mounting casualties from typhoons, floods, heat waves and droughts all across Asia.

These included Super Typhoon Yagi, one of the strongest storms to hit Southeast Asia in years. 

Yagi left a path of death and devastation in November. From the Philippines through southern China and Vietnam and onto Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, the storm killed hundreds and devastated communities and livelihoods.

Floods from the yearly monsoon rains also left millions displaced and hundreds dead in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Nepal, making this year one of the deadliest in recent memory.

And if it was not record-breaking rainfall, it was drought accompanied by scorching temperatures leading to months of severe water shortages.

With extreme weather events seemingly more the norm and their victims too often increasingly unnoticed and forgotten, the region’s climate casualties garner the dubious distinction of Worst Year in Asia.

Bad year: East Asia’s babies

In marked contrast to the situation in relatively youthful and growing nations like India, Indonesia and the Philippines, aspiring grandparents across East Asia might well have a critical question. Where are all the babies?

In South Korea, China and Japan as well as Taiwan and Hong Kong, record-low fertility rates continued to prove a major concern in 2024.

Fertility rates across East Asia remained well below that needed for a stable if not growing population.

The long-term economic consequences could well be significant as nations contend with shrinking workforces and aging populations.

Women are having very few to no children. Changing gender roles, long work hours, the high cost of housing, education and childcare are all cited as some of the factors behind this East Asia demographic trend.

In March, the Japanese government announced that Japan’s birth rate was the lowest it had ever been since the country first collected the statistic in 1899.

In December, South Korea was declared a “super-aged” society with one in five people aged 65 or older.

The so far seemingly losing battle against declining birth rates in these nations continues.

Mixed year: Democracy and incumbency

In an era of discontent, being an incumbent is no easy matter. From India to Indonesia, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka to Taiwan, elections were very much on the 2024 calendar across the region.

At year’s end, however, it proved a decidedly mixed year for not just incumbent politicians but for democracy itself.

The year began with long-time leader and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasani winning re-election overwhelmingly in an election boycotted by the opposition, only to resign and flee the country months later after weeks of student protests.

As a perhaps bewildered world looked on, the year ended with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol declaring martial law eight months after his party lost big in general elections.

The National Assembly then successfully moved both to force the lifting of martial law and then to impeach him as well as his acting successor.

Yet, elections cemented a vibrant democracy in Taiwan, forced India’s President Narendra Modi to govern with a coalition, surprised the Pakistan incumbent and continued the record for peaceful transitions of presidential power in Indonesia.

Diverse, mixed democratic trajectories for a diversity of democracies in Asia characterised 2024.

Good Year: the Korean wave

Last year proved another winning year for Hallyu, South Korea’s wave of wildly popular cultural exports.

Whether K-pop music, K-dramas, K-beauty products or Korean fried chicken and other K-food, 2024 proved a good year for this expanding wave of business that has grown well beyond superstar musical groups BTS and Blackpink.

More than 300 Korean movies and series are now available for streaming on Netflix alone, including Squid Game, Season 2 and contract marriage melodrama When the Phone Rings.

The romantic drama Queen of Tears starring Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won was a 2024 global sensation, clocking more than 690 million viewing hours on Netflix.

And the world was dramatically introduced to K-literature, with Korean author Han Kang in 2024 becoming the first Korean and first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

This tsunami of soft diplomacy that has elevated South Korea’s global presence is also big business.

The global economic benefit to Korea of Hallyu is now projected to hit US$198 billion (RM892 billion) by 2030, according to a BusinessKorea report on a white paper released this July by TikTok and market research firm Kantar.

Best Year: Moo Deng

Indonesia, not Thailand, might be the largest nation by economy and population in Southeast Asia. Yet, it was Thailand that was home to the year’s winning and winsome social media sensation.

To say that the female baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng, Thai for “bouncy pork”, took the world and 2024 by storm, would be an understatement.

Born in July at Thailand’s Khao Chew Open Zoo, the “hyper-viral” baby pygmy has seen her memes, photos and videos go global.

Fan accounts on X, Tik Tok and Facebook continue to  proliferate. And even NBC’s long-running US comedy show Saturday Night Live got in on the “Moo Deng mania”.

Asian American star Bowen Yang impersonated the baby hippo on the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, lamenting the hazards of instant fame.

But, Moo Deng isn’t just another pretty face. She correctly predicted the winner of the 2024 US presidential race, by selecting the fruit and vegetable plate bearing Donald Trump’s name over that of one for rival Kamala Harris.

For bringing a bit of hope and joy to a region and world that could use a lot more reasons for good cheer, our designation of “Best Year in Asia” for 2024 goes to Moo Deng.

As the region looks to the return of President Trump to the White House in 2025 and to what might well be a tumultuous year ahead, here’s to a more joyful and hopeful new year ahead.