Anwar’s Malaysia Leadership Push Derailed in Rural Heartland

Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim struggled to swing voters in government strongholds where his own ethnic group is dominant, thwarting his ambition to take power from a ruling coalition he helped lead before his ouster in 1998.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, 59, won a 133-seat parliamentary majority on May 5, even though he received just 47 percent of the popular vote, Election Commission data showed. Anwar’s own party and another made up mainly of ethnic Malays did worse than in the last election in 2008, while his ally, the mostly ethnic-Chinese Democratic Action Party, improved, giving the three-party opposition 89 seats.