Kuala Lumpur
\nMalaysian Prime Minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim said he felt \u201cvindicated\u201d after taking his oath as a lawmaker Monday, marking his return to active politics three years after he was imprisoned for sodomy in a charge that critics said was politically motivated.<\/p>\n
The swearing-in ceremony in Parliament followed Anwar\u2019s landslide win in a by-election on Saturday in the southern coastal town of Port Dickson in which he defeated six other candidates. The seat was vacated after a lawmaker from his party quit, paving the way for Anwar\u2019s political comeback.<\/p>\n
Anwar, 71, joins his wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail currently Malaysia\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and his eldest daughter, Nurul Izzah Anwar, in Parliament. He has said that his by-election victory is a \u201cvote of confidence\u201d in the new government.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been deprived of my right from time to time and I have to go through a by-election to come back I feel vindicated,\u201d Anwar told reporters Monday. He reiterated support for Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad\u2019s leadership to ensure a stable government and pledged to focus on parliamentary reforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Parliament has in the past been considered or dubbed as a rubber stamp … we would like to ensure a new approach where Parliament is more effective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Once a high-flying member of the former ruling coalition, Anwar was convicted of homosexual sodomy and corruption after a power struggle with Mahathir, who was Prime Minister for 22 years until 2003. He was freed in 2004 but was once again convicted for sodomy in 2015, charges that he said were concocted to destroy his political career.<\/p>\n
Angered by a massive corruption scandal at a state investment fund involving then-Prime Minister Najib Razak, Mahathir made a political comeback and formed an alliance with Anwar, with the two setting aside their bitter feud ahead of May\u2019s General Election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Prime Minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim said he felt \u201cvindicated\u201d after taking his oath as a lawmaker Monday, marking his return to active politics three years after he was imprisoned for sodomy in a charge that critics said was politically motivated. The swearing-in ceremony in Parliament followed Anwar\u2019s landslide win in a by-election on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44456,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44454\/revisions\/44456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}