Anwar Ibrahim

Anwar bin Ibrahim (born 10 August 1947) is a Malaysian politician who has served as the 10th prime minister of Malaysia since 2022. A member of the People's Justice Party (PKR), he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Tambun since 2022. Upon becoming prime minister, he appointed himself Minister of Finance. Anwar is also the president of PKR since 2018 and the chairman of Pakatan Harapan coalition since 2020.

Born in the Crown Colony of Penang during the Malayan Union, Anwar graduated from University of Malaya. Prior to entering politics, he served as president of the National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students and of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement. He later joined UMNO, then the dominant party in the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition. He became the 7th deputy prime minister in 1993 and served as Minister of Finance from 1991, playing a key role in Malaysia's response to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 1998, Anwar was removed from all government posts by then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and subsequently led the Reformasi movement against the government. He was jailed in April 1999 on charges of corruption and sodomy, until his release in 2004 after his conviction was overturned. He returned to politics as the 12th leader of the opposition from 2008 to 2015, merging opposition parties into the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition, which contested the 2008 and 2013 general elections. He disputed the 2013 election results and led subsequent protests.

In 2014, Anwar attempted to become Menteri Besar of Selangor as part of the Kajang Move, sparking a nine-month political crisis that ended with a five-year prison sentence following a second sodomy conviction in 2015. While in prison, he rejoined Mahathir Mohamad in the new Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition in absentia, which won the 2018 general election. Mahathir planned for Anwar to succeed him as prime minister after an interim period. He was granted a royal pardon by King Muhammad V and released in May 2018. He returned to parliament in the 2018 Port Dickson by-election while his wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, served as deputy prime minister in the PH administration. During the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis, the PH coalition collapsed, leading to the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government under Muhyiddin Yassin, with Anwar becoming the opposition leader for a second term from 2020 to 2022.

Following the 2022 general election, where Pakatan Harapan won a plurality of seats, Anwar was sworn in as prime minister on 24 November 2022. On 2 December 2022, he appointed MPs from PH, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), and UMNO as ministers in a unity government cabinet, retaining the finance portfolio for himself. His government has faced criticism for conservative policies and controversies including the discharge not amounting to acquittal of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and the reduction of former prime minister Najib Razak's prison sentence. As ASEAN chairman since January 2025, Anwar facilitated a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia, addressing the border dispute through regional diplomatic channels.

Anwar is widely regarded as a liberal reformer and intellectual. He has advocated for Islamic democracy and hopes Malaysia can serve as an example of democratic governance in the Muslim world. He supports the Islamic concept of Ummah as a framework for democracy in Muslim countries and emphasizes judicial independence, good governance, and rejection of authoritarianism. While initially supporting continued affirmative action policies for Malays as a youth activist, he later criticised Ketuanan Melayu and called for need-based affirmative policies and poverty support, although such policies have been retained under his premiership. During his imprisonment and trials, he was described as a "uniting figure" for the opposition.