page_title: Mahathir Mohamad
section_title: Second term as prime minister
hierarchical_section_title: Mahathir Mohamad / Second term as prime minister
caption_attribution_description: English: Ilham Aliyev met with Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad Azərbaycanca: İlham Əliyev Malayziya Baş naziri Mahathir Məhəmməd ilə görüşüb
context_page_description: Mahathir bin Mohamad is a Malaysian statesman and author who served as the 4th and 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia from July 1981 to October 2003 and from May 2018 to March 2020. He has been the Member of Parliament for Langkawi since May 2018. Mahathir's political career has spanned more than 70 years starting with his participation in protests against non-Malays gaining Malaysian citizenship during the Malayan Union through to forming his own political parties, the Malaysian United Indigenous Party in September 2016 and the Party of Homeland's Fighters in August 2020.
  Born and raised in Alor Setar, Kedah, Mahathir excelled at school and became a physician. He became active in the United Malays National Organisation before entering parliament in 1964. He served one term before losing his seat, subsequently falling out with Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and being expelled from UMNO. When Abdul Rahman resigned, Mahathir re-entered UMNO and parliament, and was promoted to the Cabinet, where he served as Minister of Education from 1974 to 1978 and Minister of Trade and Industry from 1978 to 1981. He became Deputy Prime Minister in 1976.
context_section_description: Following the historic victory of the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan, Najib was successfully ousted from the incumbent prime ministerial seat. Mahathir hoped to be sworn in as the new prime minister by 5 pm.
  Concerns for a smooth power transition emerged as Najib, although admitting the defeat of his party and coalition during a press conference at 11 am, declared that no party has achieved a simple majority win (due to the fact that the opposing coalition were competing as allied individual parties, and was not successfully registered as a single unit by the Electoral Committee, who was believed to be under Najib's heavy influence during his power), thus leaving the appointment of the office to the hands of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. Nevertheless, the National Palace of Malaysia had promptly issued a royal statement, confirming Mahathir Mohamad will be sworn in as the prime minister at 9:30 pm, on the same day (10 May 2018), and had strongly refuted any claims of delaying the appointment. At 10 pm, Mahathir was officially sworn in as prime minister.
  Mahathir became the oldest currently serving state leader in the world (aged 92 years, 304 days at the time). As proposed in the original plan of Pakatan Harapan, Wan Azizah ran as his deputy, and therefore became the first female deputy prime minister of Malaysia. Following his appointment as prime minister, Mahathir promised to "restore the rule of law", and would make elaborate and transparent investigations on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal possibly perpetrated by the ex-prime minister, as Mahathir told the press that if Najib has done something wrong, he would face the consequences.
caption: Mahathir and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, 26 October 2019
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