KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s royal rulers have agreed to the government’s plan to appoint a non-Muslim attorney-general, the palace said, after a near two-week impasse that stoked racial tensions in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian country.

Groups representing the ethnic Malay majority rejected the plan to appoint top lawyer Tommy Thomas in what amounted to probably the first resistance faced by new Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad since he won a stunning election victory last month on promises to fight corruption and reform institutions.

Malaysia’s palace said King Muhammad V had decided to end the tenure of Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali and appoint Thomas as his replacement on Mahathir’s advice and after consulting with the heads of the other eight royal households.

Thomas is the first non-Malay to take the post of attorney-general since Malaysia was formed in 1963. Its decision is likely to quell dissent in the Muslim Malay community, which makes up about 60 per cent of Malaysia’s population of roughly 32 million.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2018