Like many young Malaysians, Daniel Mizan Qayyum yearned for change in a country that has been under one party’s corrosive thumb for six decades, so he naturally had misgivings about voting for a 92-year-old former autocrat.
But Malaysia’s rambunctious politics often creates unlikely allies, and Daniel is one of millions who catapulted the elderly Mahathir Mohamad to a shock victory in the May 9 elections over the corruption-plagued political machine that he once led.
They had no choice.
“We were revolted,” Daniel, a 27-year-old law student, said of Mahathir’s late conversion into a reformist.
“This guy was the one who strong-armed all the draconian laws,” he said, referring to Mahathir’s tough stance toward dissent in his 1981-2003 tenure.
But Daniel and other young voters held their noses and voted, convinced that anything was better than the long-ruling former regime.
The untested Pakatan Harapan (Pact of Hope) coalition now faces the challenge of delivering…
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