Mahathir’s Shock Election Loss Marks End of Decades-Long Career

At 97, Mahathir Mohamad was looking to the future, plotting to form a government once again after Malaysia’s national vote. Instead, the country’s longest-serving leader finds himself dumped out of parliament in what’s likely to be the end of his storied political career.

It’s a stunning fall from grace for the man who, just four years ago, led a reformist coalition to victory at the general election. The defeat shows that even the elder statesman of Malaysian politics wasn’t safe from voters angered by the country’s political instability.