KUALA LUMPUR – For decades after he was sacked from Umno in 1998, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim fought as an opposition leader to convince the Malay Muslim majority to turn its back on the grand old party and reform Malaysia’s politics from a system riddled with corruption, patronage and elite capture.

Now that he has finally become prime minister, the irony is that Umno’s loss of the Malay vote it dominated while enjoying six decades of uninterrupted rule is now a liability for Mr Anwar.