The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, focused in the second part of his private speech to the "Interview" program on his long political career, which some likened to that of the late South African leader Nelson Mandela. Just as the South African leader led his country after years of imprisonment and suffering, Ibrahim ascended to the premiership. In his country after imprisonment repeated more than once.

Ibrahim - who held the position of Prime Minister in Malaysia since last November - revealed the reasons for the fluctuation of the relationship between him and former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, and attributed it to the fear of Mahathir's advisors of danger if he managed - Ibrahim - to assume the position of prime minister when he was working. as his deputy, but he acknowledged that Mahathir, whatever his mistakes, had a major role in the rise of Malaysia.

He said that he was very close to Mahathir and supported him, but the latter attacked him constantly and there is no contact between them during this current period, expressing his conviction that the differences between them should not turn into enmity and that he will contact him when the time comes.

Ibrahim had joined the United Malay National Organization (UMNO) at Mahathir's invitation in 1982, and rose quickly within the party and became one of its most prominent figures.

Then the relationship between the two men became strained before they returned to the coalition in 2018.

Early political activity

Ibrahim spoke in the second part of the interview program in episode (3/12/2023) about his personal career, his political activity and his founding of the Muslim Youth Movement after graduating from the university at the end of the sixties, and about his prison experience, where he was imprisoned for the first time in 1974 for two years.

The guest of the "interview" program praised his wife, Mrs. Aziza Ismail, and said that she stood by him during his ordeal, supported him strongly, and raised his six children while he was in prison, stressing that she went into politics for him, as she is an ophthalmologist.

The Malaysian official was known for his early political activity, as he emerged during his studies at the University of Malay as a student with a revolutionary spirit, and led demonstrations against corruption and others defending poor peasants in Malaysia, and because of this, the first prison experience was in the mid-seventies.

He also touched on his ideas and vision, stressing that he wants to be a good Malaysian, and that he is a committed Muslim and understands Islam as a way of life and a religion together, and includes ideas about justice, humanity and mercy, and there is no Islam without a spirit of reform.

He revealed that he was influenced by Muslim scholars, including the Pakistani Muhammad Iqbal and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, who said he had read his books deeply, the Algerian thinker Malik bin Nabi, and others.

On the other hand, Ibrahim touched on the issue of Islamophobia and the Western media during the Qatar World Cup, highlighting that the State of Qatar dazzled the world by organizing the 2022 World Cup.