MALAYSIA: Anwar Ibrahim has been sworn in as Malaysia’s 10th Prime Minister, marking an incredible comeback for a man who was first lined up for the job in the boom years of the 1990s before he was suddenly sacked and jailed.
The 75-year-old veteran politician took the oath of office in front of King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah at the palace in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday afternoon, hours after he had been named to the top job by the monarch.
King Sultan Abdullah had taken control of the process of forming a new government after Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition won the most seats in the weekend’s election, but not the 112 seat parliamentary majority necessary to form a government. The PH and the rival conservative Malay-Muslim Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition under former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, which had the second-highest number of seats, both began negotiations to form a government, wooing smaller coalitions in the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak as well as Barisan Nasional (BN), the alliance that dominated Malaysia for some 60 years before its historic defeat in the last elections in 2018.
Anwar’s coalition, known as Pakatan Harapan, won the most seats in Saturday’s vote with 82, while Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional bloc won 73. They need 112 – a simple majority – to form a Government. The long-ruling Barisan bloc won only 30 seats – the worst electoral performance for a coalition that had dominated politics since independence in 1957.
The decision on the Prime Minister came down to the King after both Anwar and Muhyiddin missed his Tuesday afternoon deadline to put together an alliance. The Constitutional monarch plays a largely ceremonial role but can appoint a Premier he believes will command a majority in Parliament. Malaysia has a unique constitutional monarchy in which kings are chosen in turn from the royal families of nine states to reign for a five-year term.
– ALJAZEERA
by Daily News Sri Lanka
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