Malaysia’s imperishable opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was named high minister on Thursday, ending a days-long political impasse after inconclusive election results.
His ascent will limit a turbulent political life for Anwar which has not only propelled him into the corridors of power but also landed him inside a jail cell on corruption and sodomy charges.
“After taking into consideration the views of Their Royal Highnesses the Malay Autocrats, His Majesty has given concurrence to appoint Anwar Ibrahim as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia,” read a statement from the palace of the king, Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah.
In the capital Kuala Lumpur, Anwar’s sympathizers were in a celebratory mood.
“I got goosebumps, seriously,” said 36- time-old Norhafitzah Ashruff Hassan.
“He fought hard to be given the chance to be PM. I hope he performs well and proves his worth,” he added.
“I can not express in words the rapturous feeling I have,” said Muhammad Taufiq Zamri, a 37-time-old product director.
He said, “A sense of sanguinity now flows and I believe Anwar will lead the country forward.”
Anwar’smulti-ethnic Pakatan Harapan(Alliance of Hope) coalition won the most seats in the weekend’s election, on an anti-graft communication.
But its aggregate of 82 seats was short of the 112 needed for maturity.
The king had summoned Anwar and former high minister Muhyiddin Yassin — whose Perikatan Nasional bloc got 73 seats — in an attempt to break the impasse, but no deal could be struck.
Rollercoaster trip
For Anwar, the premiership is the capstone of a rollercoaster of 25 times.
The provocateur former pupil activist was close to power in the late 1990s, as finance chief and deputy high minister to Mahathir Mohamad.
But the two had a bitter falling-out over how to handle the 1997-98 Asian fiscal extremity.
Mahathir sacked his former protege, who was also expelled from their also- party the United Malays National Organisation(UMNO), and charged with corruption and sodomy.
Anwar was doomed to six times in jail for corruption in 1999 with a fresh nine times added for the sodomy charge the ensuing time; the two rulings to run successively.
As he claimed political persecution, road demurrers erupted and evolved into a movement for popular reforms.
The Mahathir-Anwar hassle has dominated and shaped Malaysian politics over the once four decades, “alternatively bringing despair and stopgap, progress and regress to the country’s polit ”, according to Oh Ei Sun of the Pacific Research Center of Malaysia.
The Malaysian Supreme Court capsized Anwar’s sodomy conviction in 2004 and ordered him freed.
Long time coming
Anwar confederated with Mahathir during the 2018 choices when his quondam persecutor came out of withdrawal to challenge peremptory Najib Razak, who was mired in the billion-bone 1MDB fiscal reproach.
Their alliance scored a major palm against UMNO and Najib, who’s now serving a 12- time jail term for corruption.
Mahathir came high minister for the alternate time with an agreement to hand over the premiership to Anwar latterly.
He noway fulfilled that pact and their alliance collapsed after 22 months.
“This is a long time coming for Anwar Ibrahim,” Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, deputy managing director at strategic premonitory establishment Bower Group Asia, told AFP.
“One of his dockets is to ensure he’s suitable to fulfill his reform docket as he looks to stabilise an approximately cobbled civil coalition,” he further said.
James Chin, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Tasmania, told AFP that the advertisement “will be at internationally since Anwar is known as a Muslim democrat worldwide”.
“His biggest challenge will be to lead Malaysia out of the profitable malaise following the epidemic,” the professor added.
