Ibrahim, Malaysia’s new prime minister after 25 years of waiting and two convictions for sodomy

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With a reformist program, this moderate Muslim politician comes to power after a long career marked by allegations of homosexuality that he has always denied

After five days of blockade and numerous negotiations since Saturday’s election, former politician Anwar Ibrahim was named Malaysia’s new prime minister on Thursday. For him, an exciting wait of not just five days, but twenty-five years, the years he has waited to finally seize power in this Southeast Asian country, has come to an end.

The broad coalition led by his party, Pakatan Harapan (PH), won the snap election with 82 deputies, but fell short of the 112 needed to win a majority in Malaysia’s parliament. With 73 seats, it was hot on the heels of the ruling coalition, Perikatan Nasional (PN), which had been floating around for a few days with the possibility of striking deals with other parties to stay in power.

As if it were heads or tails, the coin could have gone either way when Malaysia’s king, Sultan Abdullah, proposed a government of national unity to break the ‘deadlock’. But Muyhiddin Yassin, Anwar’s rival, rejected the monarch’s proposal, a move that played against him and sealed his fate.

With other important support and the support of the king, who consulted with the other sultans of the rotating Malaysian monarchy, Anwar Ibrahim has finally been sworn in as prime minister for the sake of the country’s stability. “It is important that our nation frees itself from political instability when the country needs a strong and stable government to improve the economy,” the sovereign justified in a statement.

For Anwar Ibrahim, 75, a path that has lasted a quarter of a century has ended and a new one full of challenges begins. Considered one of the most brilliant and charismatic politicians in South East Asia, he started founding an Islamist movement in his youth and in 1982 joined the party that held power in Malaysia since independence from the British in 1957: the National Organization for Unity. Malaya (UNMO) leads the National Front (Barisan Nasional) coalition.

Thanks to his oratorical and managerial skills, he rose quickly in that formation until he became Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of Economy of the Executive Branch in 1993 under veteran Mahathir Mohamad, who appointed him as his successor.

But their disagreements over how to deal with the 1997 Asian financial crisis broke their union, and in 1998 Mahathir ousted Anwar for corruption and abuse of power amid fierce civil protests.

In an accusation he always defined as political revenge, Anwar fell out of favor when one of his aides denounced raping him and was jailed for sodomy, a crime in Muslim Malaysia. Although the verdict was overturned in 2004, another of his aides denounced him again for the same in 2008, when he led the opposition and threatened the hegemony of the ruling coalition.

Due to lack of evidence, the judge acquitted him in 2012, but the Court of Appeal reopened the case in March 2014. In 2015, he was again sentenced to five years for sodomy, a sentence that advocacy groups attributed to his improving results. elections, which threatened the government.

In two interviews granted when he was released, one in 2010 and the other in 2014, he always denied the allegations. “It’s just a government strategy so that I can’t participate in the elections,” explained Anwar, who is calling for a reform of the laws to bring about a more moderate and modern Islam in Malaysia.

In 2018, while still in prison, his party won the elections in a new coalition formed with his mentor and later enemy, Mahathir Mohamad. Despite their past rivalry, the two worked together to oust the ruling party after the monumental corruption scandal involving the 1MBD sovereign wealth fund, which saw the disappearance of €4 billion and sent Prime Minister Najib Razak to 12 years in prison. prison in 2020.

After the election victory, the King of Malaysia pardoned Anwar, who joined Mahathir in the government with a promise to sack him after two years as he was already non-year-old. But that coalition fell apart again due to several political defections before the succession arrived, and Anwar was back in opposition by May 2020.

Two and a half years later, and after a long wait of a quarter of a century and two prison terms, he finally fulfilled his political destiny and became Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Source: La Verdad

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