Malaysia in the 21st century

The dismissal of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar caused intense divisions within Malaysia, but Mahathir, benefiting from an economic recovery, was able to retain his grip on political power. In 2003 Mahathir stepped down as prime minister and was replaced by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (his handpicked successor), who won a landslide victory the following year. With Mahathir out of office, Anwar’s conviction was overturned in 2004, and he was released.

In March 2008 Anwar led a coalition of opposition parties—called the People’s Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat; PR)—that gained more than one-third of the seats in Malaysia’s lower house of parliament, even though he still could not run for office. Anwar officially returned to politics later that year, and in October he won a solid victory in a parliamentary by-election, even though, shortly before the election, he was again charged with sexual misconduct. Meanwhile, Abdullah faced growing criticism, largely for his failure to curtail corruption, and in October 2008 he announced his intention to resign the following March. Abdullah was succeeded in office by his deputy prime minister, Najib Razak (son of Abdul Razak), in April 2009.

In January 2012 the 2008 charges against Anwar were dismissed after a two-year trial, but an appeals court subsequently overturned this acquittal, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. The PR had high hopes of improving on its 2008 electoral showing in upcoming polls for the lower house. Although the opposition gained some seats in the voting held in early May 2013, the BN was able to hold on to its majority, and Najib Razak retained his office as prime minister.

A pair of air disasters soon cast a shadow over Najib Razak’s second term, however. On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The 239 passengers and crew on board were presumed dead. Just four months later, 298 people were killed when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while flying over territory controlled by Russian-backed militants in eastern Ukraine.

In April 2015 Najib Razak passed a controversial 6 percent tax on goods and services. Later that year his administration was engulfed in scandal when Najib Razak and other officials were implicated in a multibillion-dollar embezzlement and money-laundering scheme involving 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state-owned investment fund. Mahathir emerged from retirement to chastise his onetime protégé, and the former prime minister broke with the BN and aligned with the opposition. The weight of the 1MDB allegations combined with overwhelming dissatisfaction over the goods and services tax to bring an end to the BN’s six-decade hold on power in Malaysia. The opposition Alliance of Hope (Pakatan Harapan) claimed 122 of 222 seats in the May 2018 parliamentary election, and the 92-year-old Mahathir was returned to the prime minister’s office. Mahathir stated that his administration would pursue a royal pardon for Anwar, a move that would allow Anwar to once again hold political office.

With relative political stability over the last decades of the 20th century, government and business leaders managed to carry Malaysia into the 21st century with a prosperous, diversified economy. Commodity exports remained important, however, and certain parts of the country struggled with severe environmental problems, largely as a result of the exploitation of natural resources. Although development policies were criticized as lacking ethnic and regional balance, Malaysia nonetheless had achieved considerable success in creating national unity and sociopolitical stability out of deep regional and ethnic divisions.