• Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak lost Wednesday's election to his former mentor Mahathir Mohamad.
• Mahathir once fired and jailed Anwar Ibrahim, who was the opposition's de facto leader for many years, and the two came together this year to defeat Najib.
• This is the first time in 60 years Malaysia's ruling coalition has lost an election, but the country's king will decide who becomes the next prime minister, due to election rules.
• Some said nationwide celebrations on Wednesday night felt like the country had "won the World Cup" while some overseas Malaysians feel like they could now return home to live.

For the first time in 60 years, Malaysia's ruling coalition has been voted out of power and the tale is nothing less than dramatic.

The coalition was headed by Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose popularity plummeted after $1 billion went missing from a state-owned investment fund. Not only was some of the money used to fund "The Wolf of Wall Street" movie and diamonds for supermodel Miranda Kerr, nearly $700 million was found in Najib's personal bank accounts.

He had also overseen a sodomy conviction of the country's most popular opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, who was sentenced to five years jail. But it wasn't his first time behind bars.

Before his firing in 1998, Anwar was the country's deputy prime minister under Najib's predecessor Mahathir Mohamad. Days after leading a march of tens of thousands to demand Mahathir's resignation, Anwar was beaten, arrested and eventually found guilty of sodomy and corruption.

But ahead of the 2018 election Anwar, the opposition's de facto leader, agreed to work with his former enemy Mahathir, who is now 92-years-old, to unseat Najib. And they succeeded, winning 113 seats to Najib's 79.

Euan Graham, the director of the Lowy Institute's international security program, described the result as a "seismic shift" complete with "cinematic melodrama."

"The human element shows through very clearly. You have Anwar in his last gasp politically having held out, incarcerated by his nemesis Najib who now has now found himself in the unforeseen position of being the politically vanquished," Graham said.

"And who delivers the death blow but Mahathir himself, who did more than anyone else to institutionalize the Barisan Nasional [coalition] form of government for the bad as well as the good.

Not only will this election deliver the first change of government since 1957 and the world's oldest leader, Malaysia will also have its first demale deputy prime minister.

It's expected that Anwar will be pardoned and will eventually lead the country. Until then, Anwar's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who considers Mahathir a "changed man," will serve as his deputy once he is worn in.

But that swearing in is no longer guaranteed. Police said on Thursday that Mahathir's inauguration has been cancelled and Najib did not concede at a press conference, though he acknowledged the election's results.

"I accept the verdict of the people," he tweeted.

Because no single party won a majority — the opposition is technically an alliance of parties — Malaysia's king, Sultan Muhammad V, will now decide the next prime minister. And according to Graham the outcome may not work in Mahathir's favour.

"The relationship between the royals and Mahathir has a lot of history behind it. Basically, they hate each other," Graham said, adding the king could choose this moment to "get revenge" on Mahathir for stripping the royals' of many of their powers when he was prime minister.

Gerrymandering has skewed results in the past

Voters wait in line at a polling station in Kampung Baru for the 14th general election on May 9, 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

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