Malaysians on Thursday elected 92-year-old opposition politician, Mahathir Mohammad to lead them. Mohammad defeated his one-time protégé and incumbent Prime Minister, Najib Razak.

Razak’s defeat was largely delivered by a corruption scandal that dominated his second term in office, as his administration struggled to shake off claims that he was involved in a campaign to plunder state investment funds.

Mahathir, a veteran of Malaysian politics who came out of retirement and defected to the opposition party, has pledged to make Razak account for the missing state revenue.

His decisive and historic win, which saw his party usurping 121 seats including those of a small allied party in Sabah State out of the 222 seats to be filled in parliament, ousted the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition which has been in power since the country’s independence in 1957.

Mahathir who is was the prime minister at the head of the BN coalition for 22 years from 1981, also took advantage of the inflated living costs affecting the rural heartlands of the predominantly Muslim Malays, with an official affirmative action programme and racially – charged rhetoric.

Previously, 94-year-old Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was the oldest elected head of state in the world until he was ousted last year in a de facto coup led by the country’s military forces.