Malaysia’s veteran opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been named the country’s new prime minister after days of stalled elections.
The new leader was appointed by King Sultan Abdullah, after weekend elections resulted in an unusually hung parliament.
Neither Anwar nor former prime minister Muhyiddin Yasin secured the simple majority required to form a government.
Mr Anwar will be sworn in by the King at 17:00 local time (09:00 GMT).
“After taking into consideration the views of the rulers of Malaysia, His Majesty has agreed to appoint Anwar Ibrahim as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia,” said a statement issued by the palace, according to AFP news agency. has given.”
Mr Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) party, which won the most seats in Saturday’s election, does not have enough seats on its own to form a government.
It was not immediately clear which party he would ally with.
It took five days of intense negotiations to reach a compromise on a new government, during which various parties’ alliances and forms of unity were discussed, and then rejected.
Many political leaders have personal and ideological differences that make it difficult to achieve a workable majority.
In the end it was left to Malaysia’s constitutional monarch, King Abdullah, to call all the leaders into the palace to try to find enough common ground.
It is not clear what form the new government will take. Whether there is a formal coalition of parties, a minority government offering confidence and supply agreements with other parties, or a national coalition government including all major parties.
The decision ended a remarkable political odyssey for Anwar Ibrahim, a brilliant orator and, 25 years ago, a rising star who everyone expected to succeed then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Done.
It wasn’t meant to be. He and Mr. Mahathir clashed over the handling of the Asian financial crisis, and he was jailed for what were widely politicized allegations of graft and corruption.
His conviction was overturned in 2004, and he returned to politics, leading his own reformist party that came close to defeating the UMNO party in the 2013 election, only to face fresh allegations of corruption against him. went, and was sent back to prison in 2015.
But as opposition to then-Prime Minister Najib Razak grew over the massive 1MDB scandal, Mr Mahathir came out of retirement, reconciled with Mr Anwar, and together they defeated the ruling party for the first time in 2018. helped, resulting in the defeat of Mr. Anwar. pardoned by the king.
But the deal they struck – that Mr Mahathir, who was already in his 90s, would hand over the prime minister’s job to Mr Anwar – expired in 2020 and the top job slipped out of his hands again.
Now he has reached his goal but in the most difficult of circumstances, a covid-ravaged economy and the need to work with some of his bitterest political rivals.
The appointment of a government led by Mr Anwar’s reformist Pakatan Harapan will bring some relief from non-Malay Malaysians.
The rival Perikatan Nasional is dominated by the conservative Islamist party PAS, which non-Malays feared would push for a more religious and less tolerant type of government.
But Mr Anwar’s goal of promoting a more pluralistic, inclusive Malaysia will be difficult given all the other challenges facing the new government.
