Ibrahim Iskandar

The 17th Yang Di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia and Sultan of Johor .

He is the first king in Malaysian history to concurrently serve as the Honorary Chief of the Royal Malaysian Police. Although Malaysia has adopted a constitutional monarchy, Ibrahim himself is very wealthy, has a private army, and uses the king's authority very actively, so his actual power is much stronger. Since his time as the Sultan of Johor in 2010, he has actively wielded the power of the Sultan. After ascending to the throne of Malaysia, he used the king's constitutional discretion to appoint and dismiss the prime minister to guarantee the current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim 's term of office. He also protected the Anti-Corruption Commission, backed investigations targeting former prime ministers, and pressured the government to revive a business in which he was a major shareholder.

Taking after his father and father, King Iskandar, who was famous for being a human horse, he was famous for all kinds of harsh words, assaults, and reckless behavior during his youth . He enjoyed assaults bordering on sadism , and even once shot a man to death with a pistol after an argument with him at a nightclub . Considering that not only his father, but also his younger brother, Prince Tunku Majid, and his nephew, Prince Tunku Mizan, have been accused of assault, rape, and even murder, the history of the Johor royal family is quite formidable.[2]

On November 22, 1958, during the reign of his great-grandfather, Sultan Ibrahim of Johor , he was born as the eldest son (third child) of one son and two daughters to Sultan Iskandar and his first wife, Josephine Ruby Trevorrow from Torquay, England, at Sultanah Amina Hospital in Johor Bahru .[3] On May 8, 1959, the year after Ibrahim was born, his great-grandfather passed away in London and his grandfather Ismail ascended the throne as the new Sultan of Johor.

Ibrahim served in Australia from 1968 to 1970. He completed his secondary education at Trinity Grammar School in Sydney . After graduating from high school, he was sent to the Army Training Center (PULADA) in Kota Tinggi to receive basic military training, and then went to Malaysia as well as the United States to complete professional military training at Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Bragg in North Carolina , solidifying his foundation as a commander.

Tunku Ibrahim was crowned Crown Prince of Johor on July 3, 1981, and has since resided mainly at Istana Pasir Pelangi Palace. From April 26, 1984 to April 25, 1989, while his father, King Iskandar, was serving a five-year term as King of Malaysia, he served as regent of the state of Johor and led the state government. In the second half of his reign, when his father was old, he gradually took over overall government affairs, attending royal meetings and representing his father along with Crown Prince Abdullah of Pahang .

While he was crown prince, he met Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino . At the time, Benigno Aquino was returning to the Philippines after a long exile in the U.S., and since his father, King Iskandar, and Benigno Aquino were closely related, he, who was crown prince, was greeted in person in Singapore . At the time, Crown Prince Ibrahim brought Aquino to Johor across the sea in a private speedboat rather than an airplane in order to safely escort him. King Iskandar, who welcomed Aquino at the Royal Palace of Johor, warned him of threats to his life and advised him not to return to the Philippines, but Aquino eventually boarded a plane to Manila, and was eventually shot and killed by assailants as soon as he got off at Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983.

On January 22, 2010, King Iskandar died and was officially crowned as the new Sultan of Johor the following morning. On June 30, 2011, he personally drove the last train departing from Tanjong Pagar Station in Singapore .[4] The idea was that since his grandfather, Sultan Ismail, had opened a bridge connecting Singapore and the Malay Peninsula in 1923 , it was only right for him to drive the last train.

On February 5, 2012, on the occasion of the festival of Maulid (the birthday of the Islamic Prophet), Muar was declared the new royal capital of the state of Johor, replacing Johor Bahru , the existing capital. He also made the unconventional decision to change the weekend system. In the past, Johor had Friday and Saturday as weekends like other non-federal Malay states, but as Johor grew rapidly as an emerging industrial state, the weekends were changed to Saturday and Sunday on January 1, 1994 to match the time difference with neighboring Singapore and Kuala Lumpur . However, on November 22, 2013, Sultan Ibrahim issued an edict at his birthday banquet to return the weekend to Friday and Saturday from January 1, 2014, to enable Muslims in the province to attend Friday services smoothly. This caused great confusion among private companies doing business with Singapore and caused considerable controversy. So, unlike government offices, the private sector continued to remain closed on Saturdays and Sundays due to concerns about business disruption, and the pain continued for a while.

Ibrahim Iskandar was officially coronated as the Sultan of Johor on March 23, 2015, five years after ascending to the throne. It was 55 years since the coronation of his grandfather, Sultan Ismail, on February 10, 1960, when a coronation ceremony was held in Johor. Since 2015, when the coronation ceremony was held, the Johor state government changed the law to designate March 23, the anniversary of the coronation, as the 'official birthday of the sultan' instead of November 22, the actual birthday of the Sultan, and make it a state legal holiday every year.

In August 2015, through a major restructuring of the names of administrative districts, he reverted the name of 'Kulaijaya' district to its original name, 'Kulai' district, and renamed the new urban area 'Nusa Jaya' to 'Iskandar Puteri', and also renamed 'Redang' district to its old name, 'Tangkak' district. In addition, he issued an unprecedented edict to completely ban electronic cigarettes throughout the state of Johor as of January 1, 2016, in order to improve the health of residents . When the king himself issued a ban on e-cigarettes, the neighboring provinces of Klanthanu and Terengganu quickly followed suit.

He is well known as a strong supporter of religious moderation. He publicly criticized the phenomenon of Malaysian Muslim culture losing its original color and becoming excessively 'Arabized', emphasizing the preservation of Malaysia's unique values. Although he is the only one among Malaysian sultans who has not received higher education (university), paradoxically, he is said to be more proactive than anyone else in Johor's policy of improving the quality of education and promoting talent development.

On October 27, 2023, the Royal Assembly of Malaysia elected Sultan Ibrahim of Johor as the 17th Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, or King of Malaysia, succeeding Sultan Abdullah of Pahang State. At the same meeting, Sultan Nazrin Shah of Perak was also reappointed to the viceroyalty and began his third term.

Ibrahim Iskandar took the official oath of office on January 31, 2024, the year after his election, and began his full-fledged term as king by being handed over to the Royal Palace (Istana Negara) in the capital Kuala Lumpur . On July 20, 2024, a few months after his ascension to the throne, the official coronation ceremony of Sultan Ibrahim as the 17th king was held at the Istana Negara Palace. It was held in a splendid atmosphere, including traditional Malay royal ceremonies and the firing of congratulatory guns, and a large number of high-ranking figures from domestic and foreign political and business circles attended.

In fact, Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy where the prime minister is in charge of practical affairs and the king is a symbolic constitutional monarchy for national unity . However, recently, Malaysian politics has become so chaotic that the King's political intervention has increased more frequently. In particular, Ibrahim Iskandar has a personal guard and is a wealthy man who even runs real estate and a Ferrari store, so politicians often look out for the king. Therefore, it is correct to view him not as a symbolic being, but as a powerful person who wields real power at a level that cannot be ignored.

Originally, Malaysian politicians had a practice of gathering factions to overthrow the regime, going to the king, and asking for a change in the prime minister since they had secured the majority. However, immediately after taking the throne, Ibrahim declared that 'politicians to visit the royal palace to shake up the regime are absolutely not permitted' and forcibly guaranteed the term of office of the current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim government , using the king's constitutional discretion to appoint and dismiss the prime minister.

In addition, before taking office, he said that Malaysian politics was not properly eradicating corruption, and as promised, he would place an anti-corruption commission directly under the king.[5] It exerts enormous influence on the judiciary and the Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). Under the strong protection of the King and the leadership of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim , a high-intensity investigation into slush funds and corruption by former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad and Muhyiddin Yassin 's forces , which were previously considered unassailable, is underway without hesitation. In addition, the King himself is a major shareholder with a key stake in the 'Forest City' project, which is building a new artificial island city in Johor in cooperation with a Chinese consortium. When the government tried to regulate this business due to environmental and immigration issues, he directly used his position as the king to pressure the government to designate the area as a special economic zone (SEZ), and eventually received concessions from the government to revive the business.

He is a person with a brilliant criminal record due to all kinds of harsh language, assault, and a careless attitude during his youth. In the 1980s, he shot and killed a man with a pistol during an argument at a nightclub in Johor Bahru . However, he was not prosecuted due to royal immunity.

In the process of exposing all the promiscuity of the Johor royal family in parliament, it was revealed that a civilian named Rahim Mohammed Noor had been brutally assaulted by him. The victim caused a huge stir when she testified that the violence committed against her by Ibrahim, who was crown prince at the time, was " an act bordering on sadism ."

In 2005, he brutally assaulted a young woman named 'Yasmin' because he suspected her of stepping between him and a police officer. When the victim's father filed a formal complaint with the police, it was revealed to the world that the culprit was Ibrahim, who was the crown prince at the time.

In fact, the Johor royal family's outrageous characteristics are part of their family history, with their father and father, King Iskandar , engaging in a lot of outrageous behavior at the level of a vicious criminal . He already shot and killed a civilian in the 1970s, but was released thanks to his grandfather's help. For trivial reasons, people were assaulted, insulted, and abused, and in some cases, they were fined far exceeding the legal penalty or sprayed with tear gas for passing their own car. Two police officers committed unthinkable acts by locking him in a doghouse all day just because he made him angry.

In 1992, after he became sultan , his father , Iskandar, became enraged and beat his caddy to death with a golf club because Cody laughed when he missed a shot while playing golf. In 1993, when all hockey teams in Johor were banned from participating in national competitions due to the Sultan's unilateral boycott, the hockey coach of a high school hockey team in Johor publicly criticized this measure.[6] Recognizing this as a challenge to his authority, he summoned him to the royal palace and mass-lynched him with his bodyguards , beating them to the brink of death. It was such a serious incident that it was the reason why Malaysia abolished royal immunity in the same year. In fact, this man's evil deeds are almost at the level of ghost stories . For more details, refer to the Johor Iskandar document.

In 2005, an anonymous Prince of Johor was drunk and barged into someone else's wedding and forced female guests to dance with him. After being rejected by the women, the prince and his party retreated for a moment and then attacked the wedding hall with golf clubs and sharp weapons, and the guests, including the bride's father, ended up in the hospital covered in blood. However, because the Johor royal family was involved, the Malaysian police did not disclose the names of the five people arrested and kept them secret even though the 20-year-old prince was included. In addition, the wedding hall at the time was further concealed because it was located on the private property of the Johor royal family.

His son and successor Tunku Ismail is also a person who is more powerful than his grandfather, father, and uncles, but is by no means inferior to him in terms of strength. In 2008, in the Crowne Plaza Hotel incident, they even imprisoned and assaulted the Prince of Ngrisembilan, breaking his nose with a pistol , and assaulted the lawyer accompanying the Prince until he passed out, breaking his teeth, and imprisoned him. Although it ended without any punishment due to the influence of the Johor royal family, it is a part that shows Tunku Ismail's personality. In addition, a disabled taxi driver was assaulted with his fist in front of the St. Regis Hotel in Kuala Lumpur for not pulling out quickly, and when the controversy arose later, he even attempted to reach an agreement by paying only 240,000 won, showing the Johor royal family's brilliant past.

In 2014, student and civil activist Ali Abd Jali openly 'insulted' the Sultan by posting about the Johor royal family's past misbehavior on social media, and was then subjected to various death threats by far-right royalists and a lawsuit for 'criticizing the royal family.' Even in the detention center, he felt threatened for his life, had to apply for political asylum in Sweden , and claimed that he was beaten during his two-day prison sentence.

According to the Malaysian Corporate Commission's record on November 4, 2024, Ibrahim Iskandar is the second largest shareholder of U MOBIL with 22.3%of shares. Article 34 (3) of the Malaysian Federal Constitution stipulates that both Diper Togan should not be actively involved in any for -profit projects. U Mobile surprised the Malaysian telecommunications market by becoming a second 5G network winner in a limited bid in November 2024. There was a lot of stake in the company of Irahim Iskandar, so discussions about the family of the Andar Ibrahim government and the company were triggered.