What Does Anwar Ibrahim Stand for? Malaysia’s PM on His Balancing Act at Home and Abroad

A lot has changed since my last conversation with Anwar Ibrahim 10 years ago, when he jumped on a crackly phone call between court hearings to reveal his chances of beating a trumped-up sodomy charge “didn’t look good.”

Things looked considerably brighter for Malaysia’s Prime Minister when we caught up last month at the opening of German semiconductor giant Infineon’s new Malaysia plant. Elected to lead the Southeast Asian nation in 2022 after over two decades of legal purgatory and bouts of incarceration, Anwar clearly relishes in his redemption, though notes that freedom has curtailed his singing repertoire—specifically his penchant for belting out the Engelbert Humperdinck classic “Release Me” from solitary confinement.

“I can’t sing that song after I was released,” Anwar tells TIME. “My wife would take objection when the lyrics also say, ‘because I don’t love you anymore!’”

Global politics of the past decade has been defined by eroding democracy as China’s assertiveness under Xi Jinping and American disengagement under Donald Trump provided cover for coups and a new era of strongman (and woman) rule. Anwar’s trajectory from ignominy to his nation’s top job is the starkest counterpoint, following in the footsteps of formerly imprisoned national leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Vaclav Havel, and Nelson Mandela.

Today, Anwar is determined not to waste any more time. Under his watch, Malaysia is enjoying a glut in foreign investment from Western and Asian companies seeking to diversify supply chains from China. But his ascent also offers an opportunity to heal social and political divisions and recover credibility on the world stage following the jailing of former Prime Minister Najib Razak for abuse of power and money laundering related to the $4.5 billion 1MDB corruption scandal.

“We have to emerge as a mature democracy,” says Anwar. That means “respect for rule of law and the principles of human-rights and avoiding discrimination.”

There are, of course, challenges. The Muslim-majority nation of 35 million is experiencing a marked conservative shift, with Islamist parties enforcing Sharia law within states they control, and Islamic State-linked terrorists plotting attacks. Moreover, global catastrophes such as the Ukraine war and Gaza crisis have stoked inflation and public opprobrium respectively. Anwar’s rickety parliamentary majority—he rules by the grace of a coalition of coalitions—means he’s forced to tread lightly, severely hamstringing his ability to enact meaningful change.

“Anwar’s extremely reluctant to use his majority as he’s afraid that people will cross the floor, or they won’t vote, or they won’t support him,” says Francis Hutchinson, coordinator of the Malaysia Studies Program at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. “Consequently, he’s playing defense and doesn’t have a lot of deliverables that he can show people.”

He may have only secured the top job at the venerable age of 75, but Anwar was once a rising star tipped to be Malaysia’s youngest leader. He rose to prominence as an Islamic student radical before becoming a protégé of autocratic Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, serving as his deputy during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. But he was sacked by Mahathir a year later and jailed on charges of corruption and sodomizing a male aide—accusations long decried by human-rights groups as politically motivated and that were eventually quashed in 2004.

But Anwar’s return to the political fray was curtailed by a second sentence for sodomy in 2015. He suffered beatings during incarceration that required corrective surgery. In prison, he read avidly from the Complete Works of Shakespeare and in 2006 even presented a paper to the World Shakespeare Congress. Asked if he has a favorite play, he replies “it depends where I am. In politics, it will be King Lear.”

It’s easy to see why the Bard’s masterpiece about an ailing monarch’s heirs fighting over his kingdom might resonate. After Anwar was purged, it was another Mahathir protégé, Najib, who eventually became Prime Minister. But then Najib became ensnared in the 1MBD scandal, prompting Mahathir to return as Prime Minister in 2018 at the age of 92 alongside the jailed Anwar in a new coalition. Anwar was later freed thanks to a royal pardon under the express understanding that Mahathir would hand over power half-way through his term.

Instead, in a truly Shakespearean twist, Mahathir reneged on the deal and instead resigned, sparking a political crisis as Anwar publicly declared he’d been “betrayed.” But Mahathir’s brazen political shenanigans backfired and he was roundly defeated in a 2022 snap election, which returned Anwar’s party a plurality that allowed him to head a coalition government. “Anwar has a deep understanding of power,” says Hutchinson. “He is also fantastic at building coalitions and using his charm to bring people together.”

Having finally bested his mentor-turned-nemesis, Anwar has set off on a new path. While Mahathir oversaw a period of chilling relations with China, canceling a raft of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure projects inked by Najib worth tens of billions of dollars, Anwar has openly courted the Asian superpower. For 15 years, China has been Malaysia’s most important trade partner; bilateral trade in 2023 topped $98 billion. Also last year, Anwar unveiled $38 billion worth of Chinese investment commitments in infrastructure, renewable energy, telecommunications, and tourism.

Anwar acknowledges the U.S. is concerned by this tilt. “Why is it that you get closer to China?” he says he’s asked. “I say, the Chinese premier was here, the foreign minister was here, trade minister was here. They give us such importance and ours is a trading nation, an investment nation. [But] we have never precluded our engagement and interest with the United States.”

Indeed, it is unfair to paint Anwar as more pro-China than his predecessors. Mahathir’s nixing of BRI projects was spurred more by untangling potential venality than any anti-China shift. Malaysia has long deftly pursued economic ties with China while speaking out on matters of concern. When in August 2023, Beijing published a new map of its “nine-dash line” territorial claims in the South China Sea, Malaysia full-throatedly rejected it. Meanwhile, Anwar is proceeding with plans to build a new naval base in Sarawak province on Borneo. Military ties between Malaysia and China remain paper thin.

“Many have speculated that Anwar is leaning closer to China,” says Angeline Tan, an analyst at the Institute of Strategic & International Studies Malaysia. “But our relationship with China has in fact been consistent and growing for a very long time.”

Meanwhile, U.S. investment in Malaysia has also surged in recent years, with some of America’s top tech firms including Intel, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft investing billions in new operations, casting Malaysia as a key battleground for regional influence.

Anwar insisted he has “good bilateral relations” with the U.S., including enhanced military cooperation, though his weariness with perceived Western double standards is plain. “I’m not aware of any coherent, consistent foreign policy from the United States,” he says. “We have secured nothing from the United States except the same hectoring and lectures.”

It’s a viewpoint that echoes much of the Muslim world following Washington’s backing of Israel’s prolonged offensive in Gaza, which has so far claimed more than 40,000 lives and counting, mostly civilians. Across Malaysia, Palestinian flags flutter outside homes and restaurants, while the public have boycotted American brands such as Pizza Hut, KFC, and Starbucks with sufficient zeal to force some outlets to close.

While Malaysia has never recognized Israel and the two nations have no diplomatic ties, Anwar took the additional step of banning Israeli-registered ships from docking at Malaysian ports. However, he has resisted hardliners’ demands to also punish U.S. interests despite several of the firms investing billions into Malaysia—such as Microsoft and Google—also having contracts with the Israeli military.

“No, we draw the line, we don’t push too far,” he says. “We may have a difference on Gaza, because we’re talking about lives and killings. You can’t be silent about the atrocities for the last 60 years. But we continue aggressively to engage with U.S. companies and with the administration.”

Politics is, after all, the art of the possible, and Anwar is acutely aware of turning a moral issue into a deleterious stand. But it is also deeply personal given his many years of mediation and friendship with key Hamas figures, including Ismail Haniyeh, whom Anwar last met in Qatar in May just two months before his assassination by suspected Mossad agents in Tehran. (A killing Anwar called “murder of the most heinous kind.”)

Anwar insists that he only even engages with the political rather than military wing of Hamas. However, the fact that Yahya Sinwar, considered the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, has now succeeded Haniyeh as head of Hamas’s political leadership has blurred any distinction between the two entities as well as the ethics of continued engagement.

“Our official position is clear: we only engage with the political wing,” says Anwar, while conceding “they decide who their leader is.”

It is a needle that Anwar also attempts to thread with regard to Ukraine. Malaysia has repeatedly voted to condemn Russia’s invasion and supported calls for an immediate withdrawal at the U.N., while at the same time engaging Russia economically. Earlier this month, Anwar traveled to Vladivostok to attend the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), where he met with Vladimir Putin and delivered a speech summit’s plenary session.

On stage, Anwar said he wanted to “commend the Russian position, the Chinese position” on Palestine, insisting “we must oppose all forms of colonization,” and “no country, no person, can continue to do this gross injustice and tolerate the atrocities and think they are safe.” The problem in Palestine was one of “dispossession,” explained Anwar. “You conquer, you take people’s land … you kill them, you detain them.”

The fact that Putin, whose unprovoked war of choice in Ukraine is estimated to have led to one million dead or injured, sat next to Anwar nodding in approval during this tirade was enough to make heads spin in Western diplomatic circles.

While Anwar’s accusation of Western double standards no doubt has much merit, echoing the views expressed on college campuses across the U.S. and the globe, his fawning over Putin—whom he praised in Vladivostok for “vision and leadership”—leaves him acutely vulnerable to the same attack.

The fact is that Malaysia is applying to join the BRICS economic grouping—named after its first five members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, though since January expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE—which Anwar believes will promote economic growth and provide the developing world a greater voice on the international arena. “The Global South is rising and Malaysia intends to rise with it,” Anwar told the EEF.

In 2024, Russia is BRICS chair and Anwar clearly doesn’t want to irk the leader of the club he’s trying to join. “With Russia, we are strongly against the invasion, but that shouldn’t preclude us from engaging,” he tells TIME.

Every politician must wrestle with inevitable compromises when in office, but Anwar’s shaky coalition means he must not only build economic ties with war criminals externally but also accommodate conservatives at home. Despite being the most famous victim of Malaysia’s archaic, colonial-era sodomy law, he’s made no progress on reforming it since coming to power. “People feel a lot of disappointment on issues of race and religion and supporting an inclusive society,” says Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate with the University of Nottingham, Malaysia.

Although technically possessing a secular constitution, Malaysia has Islam as its state religion, creating a paradox exploited by the Islamic right. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by fines and prison terms of up to 20 years. In August 2023, Malaysia even banned Swatch watches featuring the Pride flag as “harmful to morality,” decreeing that wearing or selling the rainbow-adorned timepiece was punishable by a fine equivalent to $4,375 and three years in prison. “In the past few years, more laws have been passed to restrict same-sex activities,” says Dhia Rezki, deputy president of the JEJAKA LGBTQ+ advocacy group. “And we’re seeing more restrictions on freedom of expression.”

Anwar is unapologetic. “Minor aberrations will happen,” he says of the Swatch fiasco. “But … this is the issue of Western values. Why is it a priority? The only position we take is that no one should be harassed. We have to respect the rights of every single citizen. But at the same time, we have to understand that the vast majority of Malaysians—Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists—are all for a proper family and the sanctity of marriage of men and women. We don’t discriminate against anybody.”

Apologists for Anwar insist he can only act as a moderating force as long as he stays in power, though the risk is that he comes crushed under the weight of his own contradictions. Even since he formed his unity government, pundits have forecasted its demise amid a slowing economy—GDP growth fell from 8.7% in 2022 to 3.7% last year—rising prices, and frustration at the glacial progress of promised institutional reforms. That he has held on so far is a testament to deft balancing of factional interests, but unless economic indicators improve soon, his position remains precarious. Instead of risking alienating his many coalition partners with painful reforms, trade deals and courting foreign investment are politically low-risk strategies.

Not that Anwar has been inert domestically. In March, Mahathir’s two eldest sons revealed that they had been ordered by Malaysia’s Anti-Corruption Commission into assisting with an investigation into their father. Several other top allies of Mahathir have also been targeted by graft probes. “The corrupt who have stolen, squandered funds from the country have to pay back,” Anwar says. “We are doing everything we can to combat corruption, no apologies about that.”

But the fact that many of these investigations go back several decades have raised eyebrows. “Anwar is engaging in the same retributive politics as his predecessors,” says Hutchinson. “Let’s not forget where he cut his teeth.”

Anwar denies he is seeking revenge. “I’m already Prime Minister, what more do you want?” he laughs. He draws the distinction with former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who also suffered years of persecution before finally gaining power only to tyrannize her perceived enemies. She was ousted last month amid student demonstrations against employment quotas for loyalists. “It shows the plain arrogance of power,” he says. “We support the demands of the students.”

How does Anwar avoid falling into the same bitterness trap? “What’s important is you have to exceed expectations,” he says. “You suffer, what have you learned? You learned about the need for freedom and justice. You inflict unfreedom, or you continue with injustice, you have learned virtually nothing.”