By John Burton in Kuala Lumpur (ft.com)

Anwar Ibrahim would have been dismissed a few weeks ago as the Al Gore of Malaysia: a statesman respected abroad but with a fading political future at home.

His People's Justice party (PKR) had only one seat in the outgoing 219-member parliament and his chances of achieving his ambition of becoming prime minister were seen as virtually nil.

But the shock results of the recent general elections, which delivered the biggest setback to the National Front government in its 50-year history, have significantly improved the odds of Mr Anwar’s leading the south-east Asian nation.

Mr Anwar has stood on the brink of national leadership once before, in the 1990s, as deputy prime minister in the government he now opposes. But a power struggle with Mahathir Mohamad, then prime minister, led to his sacking in 1998 and then imprisonment for corruption, which he denied, and sodomy – a conviction that was overturned. He was released in 2004.

The surprise outcome of this month’s polls is largely due to Mr Anwar’s efforts, political analysts say. He spent the past year welding the three disparate opposition parties into an alliance spanning Malaysia’s three main ethnic groups – Malays, Chinese and Indians – in a country where politics is race-based. His rhetorical skills during the recent campaign were seen as crucial in persuading the public to vote for reform after years of apathy.

His PKR, which has strong roots among the urban middle class, emerged as the biggest opposition party with 31 parliamentary seats, with the allied ethnic Chinese-based Democratic Action party taking 28 seats and the conservative Islamic party (PAS) gaining 23 seats in the expanded 222-member chamber. In addition, the opposition now controls an unprecedented five of Malaysia’s 13 states. Mr Anwar appeared to read the mood of the public well, taking advantage of dissatisfaction with government failure to curb inflation, crime and corruption.

But, barred by law for his criminal conviction, he was unable to stand for parliament until next month. His wife is willing to give up her seat so he can stand in a by-election, which he is expected to win easily. “I’m eager to be back in parliament,” Mr Anwar told reporters last week. He refused to name a date for a by-election but the pressure is on. There is a chance the 14-party National Front could fail to form a government if some of its allies defected to the opposition, which is only 30 seats short of a parliamentary majority.

Attention has focused on the group of National Front parties from Borneo, which hold the balance of power with 42 seats. The independent-minded parties from Sarawak and Sabah have long had an uneasy relationship with the Malay-dominated central government since they comprise ethnic Chinese or Christian-affiliated indigenous people.

“Anwar knows Borneo politics very well from his time in government. He was instrumental in forcing them to fall in line in the 1990s when they threatened to revolt and he now has the opportunity to encourage them to do so,” said an aide to a senior politician in United Malays National Organisation, the leading government party.

Mr Anwar had spent last week advising on the formation of state coalition governments among the three opposition parties.

Wide differences exist between the secular Chinese DAP and the Muslim PAS, with the PKR seen as a vital bridge between the two.

A unifying theme among the opposition has been Mr Anwar’s promises to dismantle the government’s long-standing policy of special rights for ethnic Malays, a sharp reversal of his political stance at Umno. Mr Anwar says the policy has enriched only a small Malay elite, and wants to replace it with what he calls the Malaysian economic agenda, a “competitive ­merit-based [system] that will immediately increase foreign investment, improve the state tax revenue and promote more equity and income parity”.

But some PKR leaders who have left the party have accused Mr Anwar of political opportunism.

Chandra Muzaffar, a former PKR deputy president, said it would be “an unmitigated disaster for Malaysia” if he became prime minister. Mr Anwar has sued him for libel.