The Southeast Asian nation’s longest-serving prime minister had been hospitalized with a respiratory infection.
Former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad was hospitalized with a respiratory infection but has been discharged, his office has announced.
Mahathir, who turned 99 in July, was hospitalized on October 15 with a lower respiratory tract infection.
The veteran politician has a history of heart disease and has been hospitalized several times in recent years.
Due to his hospitalization at the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur, he was unable to attend the court hearing of the defamation suit he filed against the country’s deputy prime minister.
Mahathir is Malaysia’s longest-serving leader, serving twice as prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and from 2018 to 2020.
During his first term in office, Mahathir won praise for helping transform the country into a top exporter of high-tech goods, but faced accusations that he was undermining democracy and suppressing dissent.
Mahathir lost his parliamentary seat in the resort city of Langkawi in 2022, in a shocking result that was his first election defeat in more than half a century.
Since leaving parliament, he has continued to weigh in on the Southeast Asian country’s politics, emerging as a prominent critic of his former protégé-turned-rival Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
