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Malaysia's Long-Thwarted Anwar Makes Another Bid for Premier

Zsombor Peter

   KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's bold claim
   last week that he has forged a solid majority in parliament to back his
   latest bid for prime minister has jolted the country's jittery new
   government.

   It remains to be seen whether the seasoned statesman will seize the top
   job after a rollercoaster career, or if he is playing another weak hand
   doomed to fail.

   "The question really that people ask now is: Will he be another of the
   Malaysian leaders that never made it to PM or will he be able to
   achieve it?" said Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate with
   the University of Nottingham's Asia Research Institute in Malaysia.

   "Anwar Ibrahim has had many political lives; he cannot be ruled out as
   a political figure," she said. "But I think that the last weeks have
   not necessarily helped his political fortunes."

   Anwar, president of the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat, claimed to
   have mustered the support of a "strong, formidable majority" of
   lawmakers to wrest control from Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and
   form a new government at a press conference in the capital, Kuala
   Lumpur, on Sept. 23.

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