Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a low-key career politician who, in serving as Malaysia’s fifth prime minister, from 2003 to 2009, extended the country’s political freedoms and promoted a moderate form of Islam in his majority-Muslim Southeast Asian nation, died on Monday in Kuala Lumpur, the capital. He was 85.
Khairy Jamaluddin, a former health minister and Mr. Abdullah’s son-in-law, confirmed the death, at the National Heart Institute. He said Mr. Abdullah had been treated for “breathing issues.” In 2022, he disclosed that Mr. Abdullah had dementia.
Following the 22-year rule of the strongman Mahathir Mohamad, Mr. Abdullah’s quiet style lowered the temperature of public discourse in Malaysia, a former British colony where politics revolves around the relations between moderate and hard-line strains of Islam and between the Muslim majority and the country’s Chinese and Indian populations. Mr. Abdullah notably allowed greater political freedoms and lifted restrictions on the press.
“Abdullah’s strength was allowing dialogue and discussions of Malaysia’s problems,” Bridget Welsh, a specialist in Malaysian politics at the University of Nottingham Asia Research Center in Malaysia, wrote in a commentary after he resigned in 2009. “Inevitably, greater political space led to criticisms, as expectations were high.”
But that languid style, in contrast to the vigor of Dr. Mahathir, drew criticism. Suffering from sleep apnea, Mr. Abdullah sometimes drifted off in public, earning him the derisive epithet “the sleeping prime minister.”
His tenure began on a high note, with a resounding triumph for his party in national parliamentary elections.
“He will always be remembered for the fantastic victory of Barisan Nasional ,” Dr. Mahathir wrote in a remembrance, adding, “BN won 90% of the seats in the Dewan Rakyat.”
But in 2008, Barisan Nasional lost its two-thirds supermajority for the first time, in its worst performance since 1969. Mr. Abdullah faced mounting criticism and calls for his resignation, and Dr. Mahathir, who had become one of his harsh critics, quit the governing coalition to protest Mr. Abdullah’s continued leadership.
Bowing to pressure, Mr. Abdullah stepped down the next year and was succeeded by his deputy, Najib Razak.
The current prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, spoke warmly of Mr. Abdullah on social media, praising his calming and courteous style and his “big heart.” Using his common nickname, Mr. Anwar said, “Pak Lah taught us the meaning of humanity in leadership.”
He added: “Under his leadership, we experienced reform in the judiciary, transparency in administration, and institutional empowerment.”
In televised remarks, Akhbar Satar, who once led Transparency International Malaysia, a nongovernmental group that fights corruption, and who now heads the Malaysian Integrity and Governance Society, said of Mr. Abdullah: “He was the first prime minister to prioritize issues of integrity. To him, corruption was the mother of all problems.”
Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi was born into a prominent Muslim family on Nov. 26, 1939, in Kampung Perlis, on Penang Island, in what was then British Malaya. (The colony gained independence in 1957.) His father, Ahmad Badawai, was a religious teacher and politician; his mother, Kailan Haji Hassan, oversaw the household.
Mr. Abdullah graduated from the University of Malaya with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Islamic studies and spent 14 years in the civil service before being elected to Parliament in 1978, filling a seat that had been held by his father.
He headed several ministries under Dr. Mahathir before being appointed deputy prime minister in 1999. He succeeded Dr. Mahathir as prime minister in 2003.
As prime minister, Mr. Abdullah waged a broad anti-corruption campaign, with mixed results, and promoted a form of Islam known as Islam Hadhari, which strives to make Islam compatible with technological development. Malaysia, by then, had grown from a producer of raw materials to a nation of more than 30 million people with a diversified economy that included manufacturing and trade.
Writing in “Awakening: The Abdullah Badawi Years in Malaysia,” published in 2013, Ms. Welsh, the Malaysia scholar, said: “Abdullah left Malaysia transformed for the better; he facilitated conditions that empowered Malaysians and decentralized power. It was a necessary and welcomed change after 22 years of strongman leadership of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.”
In his later years, Mr. Abdullah withdrew from public life and focused on writing poetry. A book of his poems, “I Seek Eternal Peace,” was an international success.
He is survived by his second wife, Jeanne Abdullah; two children, Nori Abdullah and Kamaluddin Abdullah; and two stepchildren, Nadiah Kimie Othman and Nadene Kimie Othman, from his wife’s previous marriage.
Seth Mydans reported as a foreign and national correspondent for The New York Times and its sister publication, The International Herald Tribune, from 1983 to 2012. He continues to contribute to The Times.
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