Anwar Ibrahim

Anwar bin Ibrahim (Jawi: أنوار بن إبراهيم‎; born 10 August 1947), also known by his abbreviation as DSAI and PMX, is a Malaysian politician who is the 10th prime minister of Malaysia since 2022. A member of the People's Justice Party, he has been the party's president since 2018. Anwar also served as the finance minister since his premiership and the Member of Parliament for Tambun since 2022, as well as the chairman of the political coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) since 2020.

A University of Malaya graduate, Anwar served as president of the National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students as well as Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement of Malaysia before joining UMNO the then dominant party in the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition. He was the 7th deputy prime minister since 1993 as well as finance minister since 1991 and was prominent in Malaysia's response to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. In 1998, Anwar was removed from all posts by the prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and went on to spearhead 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 made a comeback as the 12th leader of the opposition from 2008 to 2015. He merged opposition parties into the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition, which unsuccessfully contested in the 2008 and 2013 general elections. He disputed the results of the 2013 elections and led a protest in response.

In 2014, Anwar's attempt to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor in the 2014 Kajang Move which led to a nine-month political crisis, which ended when he was sentenced to another five years in prison after a second sodomy conviction in 2015. While still in prison, Anwar re-joined Mahathir Mohamad in the new Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition in absentia, which went on to win the 2018 general election. Mahathir outlined a plan for Anwar to take over from himself as prime minister after an unspecified interim period. Anwar received a royal pardon from Yang di-Pertuan Agong Muhammad V and was released from prison in May 2018. He returned to parliament in the 2018 Port Dickson by-election while his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail served as the deputy prime Minister in the PH administration. The collapse of the coalition during the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis led to the new Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition under Muhyiddin Yassin being sworn in and Anwar becoming the 16th leader of the opposition for the second time from 2020 to 2022.

After leading Pakatan Harapan to win a plurality of seats at the 2022 Malaysian general election, Anwar was sworn in as the tenth Prime Minister of Malaysia on 24 November 2022. On 2 December 2022, Anwar appointed various members of parliament from Pakatan Harapan, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), and UMNO to serve as ministers in the cabinet of the newly formed unity government. Anwar named himself as the Finance Minister. During his tenure, he and his government faced criticism for implementing numerous conservative policies, as well as the discharge not amounting to acquittal of current Malaysian deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who faced corruption charges. Moreover, former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak also saw his prison sentence halved and fine reduced during Anwar's tenure, sparking further concerns.

Anwar, referred to as a liberal reformer and intellectual, has advocated for Islamic democracy and has stated he hopes Malaysia will become an example of democratic practices in the Muslim world. He supports the Islamic concept of Ummah as a framework for democracy in Muslim countries and calls for judicial independence, good governance and rejection of authoritarianism. While he initially supported affirmative action policies for Malays due to concerns about the dominance of Malaysian Chinese in businesses as a youth activist in the 1960s, after leaving prison he considered "Ketuanan Melayu" a major problem and called for transitioning to "affirmative-action policies premised on need instead of race" and providing government support to those living in poverty. Many people and scholars have described him as a "uniting figure" for the opposition in Malaysia during his imprisonment and trials. As prime minister, he has emphasised implementing measures such as diesel subsidy cuts for fiscal responsibility.