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By A. Ananthalakshmi
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 24 (Reuters) - As Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim prepares on Thursday to take over as prime minister following an unprecedented hung parliament, one of his recent comments serves to sum up the persistence that secured him the job he has eyed for three decades.
"This you need to learn from Anwar Ibrahim - patience, wait a long time, patience," the opposition leader told reporters outside his home a day after Saturday's election gave his progressive bloc the most seats in parliament, but not a majority.
The political uncertainty came to an end on Thursday, as Malaysia's king appointed Anwar, 75, to be prime minister.
Time and again, the job of prime minister had eluded Anwar, despite getting within striking distance over the years, first as deputy prime minister in the 1990s and later, as official prime minister-in-waiting, in 2018.
In between, he spent nearly a decade in jail for sodomy and corruption on charges he says were politically motivated.
The most charismatic opposition leader the southeast Asian nation has ever seen, Anwar led tens of thousands of Malaysians in street protests in the 1990s against his mentor-turned-foe Mahathir Mohamad.
His strained relationship with the veteran leader shaped Anwar's own career, as well as Malaysia's political landscape, for nearly three decades.
Mahathir once called Anwar his friend and protege, and anointed him his successor. But later, amid sodomy charges and disagreements over how to handle the Asian financial crisis, he said Anwar was unfit to lead "because of his character".
The two buried the hatchet briefly in 2018 to oust from power the political alliance they once belonged to - only to fall out again within two years, ending their 22-month-old government and plunging Malaysia into a period of instability.
As opposition leader - both from jail and in parliament - Anwar slowly chipped away at the might of the Barisan Nasional alliance, Malaysia's longest ruling coalition that prioritised the interests of the majority Malays.
His rallying cry of 'reformasi', or reforms, resonated nationwide, and is still the main promise of his alliance.
That coalition is multi-ethnic and includes a party that has mainly ethnic-Chinese members and one that is unpopular with the conservative Malay majority.
For decades, Anwar has called for inclusiveness and an overhaul of the political system in the multi-ethnic country.
He called for the removal of affirmative policies favouring Malays and an end to a patronage system that had kept Barisan firmly in power until recently.