People's Justice Party (Malaysia)
The People's Justice Party (, often known simply as KEADILAN or PKR) is a reformist political party in Malaysia formed on 3 August 2003 through a merger of the party's predecessor, the National Justice Party, with the socialist Malaysian People's Party. The party's predecessor was founded by Wan Azizah Wan Ismail during the height of the Reformasi movement on 4 April 1999 after the arrest of her husband, former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. The party is one of main partners of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. In the first general elections contested by the party in 1999, the party won five seats in the Dewan Rakyat. A resurgence of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition in the 2004 general elections reduced the party to just one seat. However, an election wave in the 2008 general elections favoring the opposition increased the party's parliamentary representation to 31 seats, as well as allowing them to form the government in 5 states. This triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and a lift on the five-year political ban imposed on Anwar Ibrahim on 14 April 2008. The Pakatan Harapan coalition defeated Barisan Nasional, which had ruled the country for 60 years since independence, in the 2018 general elections, allowing the coalition to form the government. However, defections from within PKR as well as the withdrawal of the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (BERSATU) from the coalition caused the collapse of the PH government after just 22 months in power, culminating in the 2020 Malaysian political crisis that resulted in the rise of the Perikatan Nasional government with ally-turned-enemy Muhyiddin Yassin at the helm. The PH coalition would return to power once again after the 2022 elections. The elections produced a hung parliament for the first time in the country's history, but an alliance with other parties allowed Anwar Ibrahim to become the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia through a unity government with his political rivals in Barisan Nasional as well as other political coalitions and parties to achieve a two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat. The party enjoys strong support from urban states such as Selangor, Penang, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Johor, as well as the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. It promotes an agenda with a strong emphasis on social justice and anti-corruption, as well as adopting a platform that seeks to abolish the New Economic Policy to replace it with an economic policy that takes a non-ethnic approach in poverty eradication and correcting economic imbalances. History Early years The economy of Malaysia was affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The finance minister at the time, Anwar Ibrahim (also the deputy prime minister), instituted a series of economic reforms and austerity measures in response. These actions were exacerbated when he tabled controversial amendments to the Anti-Corruption Act that sought to increase the powers of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad disagreed with these measures and ultimately sacked Anwar from all his posts. This incident and the circumstances