Ex-leader wins Parliament seat

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim won a landslide victory in a special election for a Parliament seat, strengthening his campaign to topple the government and become the next prime minister despite sodomy charges.

The official count showed that Anwar defeated the governing coalition’s candidate for a seat from a semi-rural district in the northern state of Penang.

Anwar’s reentry into Parliament would complete the political rehabilitation of a man who was fired as deputy prime minister in 1998 and jailed for six years after he was convicted of corruption and sodomizing his family driver. The conviction was later overturned.

Anwar now faces trial on charges that he sodomized a male aide. He says such charges are political.