Anwar Ibrahim has been named Malaysia’s new prime minister, marking an unimaginable comeback for a person who was first lined up for the job within the growth years of the Nineteen Nineties earlier than he was out of the blue sacked and jailed.
Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition won the most seats in the weekend’s election, however nobody occasion or coalition emerged with the 112 seat parliamentary majority essential to kind a authorities.
PH and the rival conservative Malay-Muslim Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition below former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, which had the second-highest variety of seats, each started negotiations to kind a authorities, wooing smaller coalitions within the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak in addition to Barisan Nasional (BN), the alliance that dominated Malaysia for some 60 years earlier than its historic defeat within the final elections in 2018.
With neither in a position to make a breakthrough, King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah met Anwar and Muhyiddin in addition to newly elected members of parliament to canvas their views on who ought to lead the brand new authorities.
After a gathering of the royal households on Thursday, the king introduced that Anwar would turn out to be prime minister as a result of he had the help of nearly all of Malaysia’s 222 members of parliament.
There are “no absolute winners and no absolute losers,” he said in the statement, urging all politicians to work together for the benefit of the country.
King Sultan Abdullah said the 75-year-old would be sworn in at a ceremony at the palace at 5pm (09:00 GMT).
“It is a long time coming for Anwar,” Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, deputy managing director at consultancy BGA Malaysia, told Al Jazeera. “All his struggles and campaigns for reform are now vindicated.”
Sodomy charges
Anwar Ibrahim started his political career as a student activist, founding the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia, known by its Malay acronym ABIM, in 1971 and later leading protests against rural poverty and on other socio-economic causes.
His activism caught the eye of then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who persuaded him to join the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the dominant party in BN, which had ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957.
Anwar rose rapidly through the ranks to become finance minister and deputy prime minister, earning a reputation as a charismatic, ambitious and reform-minded politician.
But as the Asian Financial Crisis deepened, Mahathir turned on the man he had chosen as his successor.
In September 1998, Anwar was sacked and accused of corruption and sodomy, a crime in Malaysia.
Thousands took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur and Anwar, who maintained the charges were politically motivated, was arrested.
His trial veered from the shocking – a black eye later confirmed to be inflicted by the then police chief while Anwar was in custody – to the absurd – a stained mattress hauled into court as evidence.
After being discovered responsible, Anwar was launched in 2004 and a second sodomy trial adopted because the reform motion that had begun together with his 1998 downfall gathered momentum.
In all, Anwar spent some 10 years in jail earlier than he was lastly pardoned and launched in 2018.
By that point he had as soon as once more joined forces with Mahathir – below the PH banner – in a bid to make sure BN was punished on the poll field for the multibillion dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB.
However Anwar’s path to the highest was once more thwarted when Mahathir wavered on his promise at hand over energy and the PH authorities collapsed amid infighting and strain from Malay Muslim conservatives.
Reform agenda
Chants of ‘reformasi’ or reform continued to reverberate round PH rallies within the marketing campaign main as much as Saturday’s election, with PH supporters in search of a authorities that may deal with corruption, defend democratic freedoms and make sure the independence of key establishments equivalent to parliament and the judiciary.
Within the face of a in all probability financial slowdown, Anwar instructed supporters that his authorities would additionally scale back the dimensions of the cupboard, and reduce ministerial salaries and allowances.
Nonetheless any strikes to reform might nonetheless be stymied by extra conservative factions.
Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation the place most individuals are ethnic Malay Muslim, however there are vital numbers of individuals of Chinese language and Indian origin in addition to Indigenous communities.
The earlier PH authorities was partly undone by a reform agenda that Malay nationalists feared would undermine the privileges granted to them under the constitution.
Such pressures might additionally have an effect on the brand new authorities, given the surge in help for PAS, Malaysia’s religiously conservative Muslim occasion, which emerged from the election with essentially the most seats of any single occasion.
It’s also the dominant participant in PN.
Wong Chin Huat, a political knowledgeable and professor at Sunway College exterior Kuala Lumpur, says Anwar wants “to get the politics proper” to have the ability to repair the financial system.
“He must be PM for one hundred pc of Malaysians, not simply the 38 % PH voters and 22 % BN voters,” Wong defined to Al Jazeera. “He must particularly guarantee the 30 % of voters who help PN that their voices will probably be heard.”
Official figures from Saturday’s election confirmed a document variety of Malaysians casting their ballots, with PH securing 5.81 million votes, PN 4.67 million and BN 3.43 million.
The electoral roll had been enlarged after a constitutional change to offer 18-year-olds the proper to vote and for automated voter registration, which additional elevated uncertainty over the end result.
