Anwar Ibrahim becomes Malaysia’s prime minister
An election designed to extinguish political uncertainty adds to it
For six decades Malaysia was a rare monarchy in that its parliament was more stable than its palace. Each of the country’s six prime ministers between 1957 and 2018 outlasted the king who had appointed him. That is because the country’s throne is shared by nine regional monarchs, who take turns on it in rotating five-year stints. Yet the country’s civilian leaders are now in even greater flux. The current king, Sultan Abdullah, has seen three prime ministers come and go since his coronation in 2019. As The Economist went to press on November 24th he seemed to have appointed a fourth: Anwar Ibrahim, a former deputy prime minister and longtime nearly man of Malaysian politics.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Anwar Ibrahim gets the prize”
From the November 26th 2022 edition
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