Anwar Ibrahim the opposition leader in Malaysia was appointed as the Prime Minister on Thursday. According to the sultan’s palace, he will be sworn in at 5:00 pm local time as the PM.
A historic hung parliament resulted from the general election on Saturday, with neither of the two main alliances—one led by Anwar and the other by former premier Muhyiddin Yassin—being able to win enough members in the house to form a government right away.
The nomination of Anwar Ibrahim marks the culmination of a three-decade journey that saw him go from heir apparent to prisoner convicted of sodomy to the longstanding opposition leader.
A number of times over the years, the 75-year-old has come close to winning the premiership: he served as deputy prime minister in the 1990s and was formally named 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 an end to his career.