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As the Tenth Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim Writes a New Chapter in the Country’s History

Long-time Malaysia’s new prime minister is Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim. The palace of the Southeast Asian country made the announcement on Thursday, ending a long election deadlock.

After meeting with state leaders, the king of Malaysia chose Anwar to be the country’s tenth prime minister. This was in line with the country’s constitution. In an official statement, the king said that Anwar would be sworn in at 5 p.m.

“I ask you to stand together for our beloved country, whether you won or lost the election,” he said, according to a CNBC translation. “It is critical that our country is free of policy volatility because the country requires a strong and stable government.”

He has requested elected members of parliament to continue to serve the nation properly, and he has expressed gratitude to state rulers for their cooperation and insights into the issue’s resolution.

Anwar’s selection brings to an end a more than two-decade wait for the former deputy prime minister, who has led the opposition for two decades despite jail stints and political coups.

Malaysian equities were in the green before the announcement, but the benchmark KLCI index rose 3% shortly afterward. Axiata Group Bhd, a telecommunications company, rose by more than 7%, while Top Glove, a manufacturer of rubber gloves, rose by 6%. Genting Malaysia gained 5.16%, while CIMB gained 3.45%.

The Malaysian ringgit increased by more than a percent to 4.5070 per dollar. Malaysia’s general election produced the country’s first hung parliament, prompting the king to request that leading coalitions present their alliances by 2 p.m. local time on Tuesday in order to form a government and nominate their preferred prime minister.

To form the government, parties and coalitions must win a simple majority of 112 seats in parliament out of the 222 seats up for grabs but none of the coalitions were able to do so.

Since Anwar’s opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan, won the 2018 election and ended the 60-year rule of the Barisan Nasional, Malaysia’s politics have been in chaos.

Malaysia’s politics were thrown into chaos when Najib Razak, the former prime minister and ex-chairman of Barisan Nasional, was implicated in the multibillion-dollar 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. Najib will spend 12 years in jail because of what he did.

But Muhyiddin Yassin, Anwar’s rival for the leadership, and other Pakatan Harapan members left in 2020 to form Perikatan Nasional.

The Pakatan government fell apart because someone left it. Since then, the Southeast Asian country has had three prime ministers, including Muhyiddin. Pakatan won the most parliamentary seats in Saturday’s election, with 82, but fell short of the 112 required to establish a government.

The incumbent ruling coalition, Perikatan Nasional, finished second with 73 seats. Muhyiddin Yassin, the party’s chairman, has been a prime minister in recent years after he and other members of Pakatan Harapan defected in 2020 to join Perikatan Nasional.

The defection caused the Pakatan administration to fall. Anwar served as former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s deputy in the 1990s before being imprisoned for corruption and sodomy.

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