Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim can't vote in what he believes will be a "defining election" for his country on Wednesday but even from his prison cell has remained a political force to be reckoned with.
The firebrand politician's conviction in 2015 for what he and his supporters said were false allegations of sodomy fractured the alliance of opposition parties that under Anwar's leadership was threatening the ruling National Front's decades-long hold on power.
It was Anwar's second spell in prison and it seemed he'd finally been done in by dirty political tactics.
Once a high flyer in the ruling party, in 1998 he was convicted of homosexual sodomy a criminal offense in Muslim-majority Malaysia inherited from the British colonial era and corruption following a power struggle with Mahathir Mohammad, Malaysia's authoritarian prime minister for more than two decades. Anwar, however, played an unexpected card.
From prison he helped forge a new opposition alliance by ending the two-decade feud with his former persecutor-in-chief, Mahathir, who'd once called Anwar "morally unfit" to govern the country.
It was a hard but pragmatic decision, Anwar's eldest daughter, lawmaker Nurul Izzah Anwar, told The Associated Press.
Anwar, 70, is an "incorrigible optimist" who believes there must be sacrifices to bring about a change of government and badly needed reforms, she said.
"He was instrumental in galvanizing an eventual approval to get Mahathir to be part of our coalition," said Nurul Izzah. "He was the first to state that it's time for us to be actively playing our part to design the Malaysia that we want."
Mahathir, 92, now leads an opposition alliance that includes Anwar's party. They're campaigning to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is mired in scandal, and end the National Front's unbroken 60-year rule.
Even with Mahathir, who is popular with Malaysia's Malay majority, the odds are stacked against the opposition. It won the popular vote in 2013 but the ruling party clung to a majority in Parliament because of an electoral system that gives more weight to Malay-dominated rural seats that traditionally support the government.
A popular Islamic student leader, Anwar joined the ruling Malay party in 1982, a year after Mahathir became prime minister.