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PM at last: How ‘irrepressible optimist’ Anwar Ibrahim went from prison to becoming Malaysia’s leader
- The Pakatan Harapan chief’s victory caps one of the most remarkable political turnarounds in modern Southeast Asian history
- Anwar, 75, tided through three decades of highs and lows with the belief that ‘freedom is part of the human endeavour. It must be part of our way of life’
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Lionised as a student leader, elevated to the forefront of Malaysian politics, then jailed and sidelined under a vengeful mentor, Anwar Ibrahim is finally leading his country after some 30 years of trying.
The prime minister’s office had appeared beyond the grasp of Anwar, Malaysia’s perennial nearly man who looked well set for the role in 2020 only to be shunned again by elder statesman Mahathir Mohamad – his one-time political patron.
Two years on, 75-year-old Anwar has won the confidence of the constitutional monarch in having the numbers required to form a new coalition government, after his Pakatan Harapan (PH) bloc won 82 seats in the tightly-contested 15th general election on Saturday.
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From prison to Malaysia’s new leader: Anwar Ibrahim appointed to top seat
From prison to Malaysia’s new leader: Anwar Ibrahim appointed to top seat
In a twist of political fate served up by an angry Malaysian electorate tired of infighting, Anwar was sworn into office on Thursday, while Mahathir, now 97, was ejected from his parliamentary seat.
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Anwar’s victory deep into his seventies caps one of the most remarkable political turnarounds in modern Southeast Asian history: a student leader gifted with a rare political touch but whose ambitions were kneecapped by legal charges – including of sodomy in a Muslim-majority country where homosexuality is illegal – and years later the chicanery of his erstwhile mentor Mahathir.
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