Freed opposition leader to make dramatic return
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s historic change of government paves the way for an extraordinary comeback for opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, who played a key role in helping to secure last week’s election victory and has become a prime minister-in-waiting.
Anwar, 70, walked free Wednesday after obtaining a royal pardon, but his expected return to politics could cause tensions in the new government led by his former foe, Mahathir Mohamad.
Mahathir, who became the world’s oldest elected leader at 92 in the elections and previously served as prime minister for 22 years until 2003, has agreed to hand the baton to Anwar.
He said Tuesday that he will run the country for “one to two years” to fix Malaysia’s financial problems, creating uncertainty about how the two will work together in the interim.
Once a high flyer in the ruling party, Anwar was convicted of homosexual sodomy — and an additional charge of corruption — in 1998 amid a power struggle with Mahathir, at the peak of his authoritarian run in power. The firebrand politician was convicted of sodomy a second time in 2015, this time as his opposition alliance was making gains on the long-ruling coalition. Anwar and his supporters have long denied the sodomy allegations, saying they were concocted to crush him and his political allies.
Yet rather than give up, Anwar worked from his prison cell to forge a new opposition alliance by ending the two-decade feud with Mahathir — a gamble that paid off when the alliance won the May 9 polls and ended the National Front’s 60-year grip on power.
After he was sworn in last week as Malaysia’s seventh prime minister, Mahathir said the king indicated he would give Anwar a full pardon that will allow him to immediately run for office. Anwar’s prison sentence ends June 8, but without a royal pardon he would be barred from politics for five years.