Time running out as Malaysia’s Anwar fights for top job

>>KUALA LUMPUR: Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s perennial opposition leader, has often been on the cusp of power, but age is catching up with him and yesterday’s election was likely his last chance to win the top job.

The 75-year-old, whose political career spans four decades and includes two prison stints, was optimistic his Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition could finally win enough seats to form a government and replace the graft-tainted ruling party.

“Things are looking good and we are cautiously confident,” he told reporters after casting his vote.

So long the runner-up of Malaysian politics, Anwar could be running out of time to achieve his long-held but elusive ambition of leading the Southeast Asian nation.

“This is Anwar’s last election. If he fails to get the support to become PM, there will be expectations that he should step aside,” said Bridget Welsh of the University of Nottingham Malaysia.

“If he chooses to stay on, this will only serve to weaken the opposition further and fragment it. There are other leaders ready to lead.”

Yet as Malaysians headed to the polls, and with jailed ex-leader Najib Razak’s scandal-hit party seeking to cement its power, analysts said the race was too close to call.

The former prime minister, who was at the centre of the 1MDB storm, is currently serving a 12-year jail term.

Because of infighting in the two governments since 2018, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which ruled Malaysia for over 60 years, crept back into power last year despite corruption allegations, and was seeking a stronger mandate in yesterday’s polls — called 10 months early.

Anwar was expelled from the UMNO and charged with corruption and sodomy. He was given six years for graft in 1999, and nine for sodomy in 2000.