Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Former leader Mahathir Mohamad will return to the premiership after pulling off an astonishing election upset to defeat the ruling coalition of his former protégé, Prime Minister Najib Razak, who had faced allegations he stole hundreds of millions of dollars from state investment fund 1MDB.
Official results early Thursday confirmed that the 92-year-old Mahathir’s Alliance of Hope coalition had secured a majority by taking 122 seats in the 222-member Parliament. Opposition supporters celebrated further as he confirmed he would hand power to Anwar Ibrahim after the opposition veteran — who Mahathir ordered prosecuted years earlier — is released in June from prison after being convicted of sodomy.
Najib’s National Front took 79 seats and other candidates secured the remaining 21, the official Election Commission said. He was expected to concede defeat later Thursday.
Mahathir had campaigned on an anticorruption platform, and his victory clears the way for a new investigation into Najib’s alleged misappropriation of money from 1MDB.