Anwar Ibrahim, the de facto leader of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (People's Justice Party or PKR) is a free man.

The 70-year-old was released from prison at around 11.30am on May 16, 2018.

He was granted a royal pardon by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (monarch) of Malaysia, after a request was made by the new Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad.

He had served more than three years of a 5-year jail term.

All smiles

He was all smiles and dressed in an immaculate suit as he left the Cheras Rehabilitation Hospital, where he was undergoing physiotherapy following a surgery on his right shoulder.

Before getting into his ride, he held up his index finger against his mouth to call for order among the crowd, many of whom were his supporters.

The Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is also his wife, was at the scene too.

He is expected to have an audience with the Malaysian King shortly after.

The video of his release:

Full circle

The pardon and Anwar's release marks the culmination of years of campaigning, some of it behind bars.

He started out as an Umno man, and once served as Minister of Education and Finance under Mahathir, who was his mentor.

However, they had a falling out in 1998 over a disagreement on how to handle the Asian Financial Crisis.

Anwar was then sacked. He launched a Reformasi (reform) movement that aimed to end Umno's race-based governance.

Mahathir then sent him to jail on charges of sodomy -- a crime in Malaysia -- and corruption.

His supporters had insisted that the sentence was politically-motivated.

Jailed twice on spurious charges

He was freed in 2004 and returned to politics, but was jailed again in 2015 for yet another round of spurious sodomy charges. Najib and Ahmad Zahid Hamidi both visited him subsequently.

In between, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) -- which is Pakatan Harapan's (PH) predecessor -- dealt heavy damage to then-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) in the 2008 and 2013 elections.

It was in 2016 that Anwar reconciled with Mahathir, shocking the entire country. Anwar's family approved of the joining of forces with their former nemesis, despite the bad blood between them.

This is what Anwar's eldest daughter, Nurul Izzah, said about the reconciliation:

"It took us many years to get to this point, and if you're not smart or wise enough to join all these forces together, we might lose the chance at wresting power from the BN."

Despite not being able to be physically present during the election campaign, he continued to reach out to his supporters via numerous tweets during GE14.

The unexpected then happened. The PH alliance led by Mahathir won the elections, and history was made.

Now that Anwar is a free man, Malaysia is watching closely to see when PH will fulfil a pledge to make him the next prime minister.

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Waiting to be PM

Mahathir said on May 15 that he would be prime minister for the "initial stage" of around one to two years, adding that he will play a role in the background even after he steps down.

The question that remains now is when.

Top image via ChannelNews Asia video