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Malaysian opposition leader Anwar appointed prime minister
The 75-year-old has time and again been denied the premiership despite getting within striking distance over the years: he was deputy prime minister in the 1990s and the official prime minister-in-waiting in 2018.
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Malaysia opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim (center) leaves after meeting with Malaysia's King at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur on November 22, 2022. Malaysia, one of Southeast Asia's biggest economies, has had three changes of government in as many years, underscoring recent political instability. The 2022 election offered no immediate solution to that impasse, only more of the political horsetrading that have characterised recent polls.
(AFP/Mohd Rasfan)
M
alaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was appointed prime minister on Thursday, the sultan's palace said, and will be sworn in at 5 p.m. (0900 GMT).
A general election on Saturday ended in an unprecedented hung parliament with neither of two main alliances, one led by Anwar and the other ex-premier Muhyiddin Yassin, immediately able to secure enough seats in parliament to form a government.
Anwar's appointment caps a three-decade long journey from heir apparent to a prisoner convicted of sodomy, to longtime opposition leader.
The 75-year-old has time and again been denied the premiership despite getting within striking distance over the years: he was deputy prime minister in the 1990s and the official prime minister-in-waiting in 2018.
In between, he spent nearly a decade in jail for sodomy and corruption in what he says were politically motivated charges aimed at ending his career.
