Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is on a mission to boost Malaysia's democracy

ANWAR IBRAHIM'S POLITICAL JOURNEY IS the stuff of legend. As an Islamist student leader, he was plucked out of his relative youth in the early 1980s to join Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government.

- DEBASISH ROY CHOWDHURY

He rose through the ranks for a decade and a half, becoming heir apparent-only to give it up in 1998 to create a movement demanding a set of political changes known as reformasi. He endured repression, trumped-up sodomy charges, and torture during the quarter-century that followed. But power finally came back to Anwar, now 76: last November, after a divisive election, he cobbled together a unity government that made him Prime Minister.

Now, nearly a year into office, he's grappling with the rise of the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) that is polarizing society and the continued fallout from the scandal that saw former Prime Minister Najib Razak, of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party, convicted of corruption in 2020. Anwar spoke to TIME about this and more from Malaysia's place in great-power competition to a civic culture of corruption.

The Biden Administration sees a global war between democracy and autocracy, between a rules-based, U.S.-led world order and one led by Russia and China. Where does Malaysia fit in? The bifurcation has not helped regional or international cooperation. But there's not much that small countries like Malaysia can do about it, except maintain the centrality of ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in our foreign policy]. We should be fiercely independent, and interact and engage with both. Fortunately, we have excellent relations with both East and West. My intention is to make sure that Malaysia emerges as a viable and mature democracy.