KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will head PKR for at least one more election cycle as part of a succession plan, the party’s communications director Fahmi Fadzil said.

In a report by Free Malaysia Today (FMT), Fahmi said the party has a clear succession plan.

"Yes, we have a very clear succession plan actually,” Fahmi said in response to whether PKR has plans to bring in new leaders since the party wore a label as an "Anwar party”.

When asked for a timeframe for the execution of the succession plan, Fahmi said, "Let’s say one election cycle”.

He added that Anwar was "quite firm” on the matter, though he did not reveal further details of the succession plan, including who would eventually take over from the former deputy prime minister.

The Lembah Pantai MP also said that the plan was laid out by Anwar himself at a party leadership retreat earlier in February, before the Johor state election.

"It’s not as if Anwar wants to be there (as PKR president forever), but in my reading of the situation, we have this mission that we need to do.

"We have this agenda, this reform agenda that we need to execute,” he said.

In addition, Fahmi said Anwar had been affected by the retirement and deaths of his comrades.

"When you look at, say, Lim Kit Siang retiring, Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh (Hamzah) retiring, people like Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz saying he will not seek re-election, of course, people in the same cohort will start to feel (the same way) and it’s not just political retirement, some people pass away,” he said.

He also stressed that Anwar had suffered a succession of personal losses, such as the death of Datuk Siddiq Fadzil, who was the former president of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (Abim), and Rusli Ibrahim, Anwar’s younger brother.

Above all, Fahmi pointed out that Anwar was still the right man to lead PKR and Pakatan Harapan into the coming general election.

Anwar retained the PKR presidency for the 2022 to 2025 term at the PKR polls 2022 held last week.

This marked the second consecutive term that he had won the post uncontested following his release from prison in 2018.