Finally Anwar Ibrahim is Appointed as Malaysia's Prime Minister

In a dramatic end to a tumultuous political career, Anwar Ibrahim will become Malaysia's prime minister. Anwar Ibrahim, a longtime opposition leader in Malaysia, was selected prime minister by the country's king on Thursday. He will be sworn in at 5 p.m. (2.30 p.m. IST), putting an end to the five days of extraordinary post-election crisis that followed unreliable results.

Anwar's selection marks the culmination of a three-decade political career that saw him go from Mahathir Mohammad's pupil to a prisoner who had been found guilty of sodomy before becoming an opposition leader and then prime minister.

In a historic hung parliament, the results of a general election held on Saturday showed that neither of the two main alliances—one led by Anwar and the other by former premier Muhyiddin Yassin—could quickly win enough seats to form a government.

Anwar, 75, has repeatedly come close to winning the leadership over the years. He served as deputy prime minister in the 1990s and as the formal prime minister-in-waiting in 2018.

He was imprisoned for nearly a decade in the interim for sodomy and corruption, which he claims were politically motivated accusations intended to put a stop to his career.