As expected, the eccentric Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar of Johor was chosen this Friday as new king of malaysia. The thriving Southeast Asian nation, with 37 million inhabitants, has a unique political system in the world, since it is a Rotating elective parliamentary monarchy in which the sovereign who exercises the Head of State does so by orders of five yearsafter being elected to the position in a vote in which the nine sultans of the confederation participate.
Sultan Ibrahim will assume his duties next January 31when the term of the current king, Sultan Abdullah, ruler of the Pahang sultanate, ends.
Ibrahim Iskandar, el 25th Sultan of Johoris one of the richest sovereigns in the world – his assets are valued at more than 750 million dollarsaccording to Forbes– and one of the most ostentatious. Cars stand out among Ibrahim’s great whims. The royal fleet has more than 300 vehicles, and there is no room for the six hundred. He has dozens of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Aston Martins, high-end BMWs…, all tuned to the monarch’s taste.
A 1936 Mercedes stands out that Hitler gifted to the royal family of Johor. So that the bodies do not suffer the rigors of the heat and dust of the desert, the sultan has built huge garages where the air conditioning never turns off and a whole army of mechanics is dedicated to polishing the cylinder heads every day. The sultan also acquired the most expensive truck in the world, which looks like those of the Transformers, with gold embroidery on the seats, flat screen televisions, a gigantic bed and even a kitchen. Around the same time, he bought a Boeing 737 airplane, valued at around 90 million euros, to which we must add the bodywork and paint. The sultan insisted that the entire apparatus be varnished with gold paint.
In 2018, the shiny plane landed in our country at the Manises airport, since the owner of Valencia CF, the Singaporean businessman Peter Limhe said he was a very good friend of both the sultan and his eldest son, the heir to the throne.