KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today condemned the military coup that took down Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi, describing it as a major setback for the Arab uprising in the troubled Middle East.

The Opposition Leader, who once predicted a “Malaysia Spring” here in the run-up to Election 2013, reminded that Mursi had been elected to head Egypt a year ago via a democratically-run election process.

“A leader democratically elected through free and fair elections should not be deposed in such a manner,” Anwar wrote on his Twitter page this evening.

He rallied countries nationwide to back his opinion on the matter, even as hundreds of thousands of anti-Mursi protesters continue to triumph over the fall of their president, who was the first leader to emerge from the spoils of the Arab Spring revolution.

Mursi was elected into power a year ago, inheriting a wounded Egypt that was still on the heal from decades of dictatorship rule under Hosni Mubarak, who had been similarly taken down through mass protests in 2011.

“Nations that profess constitutional democracy must condemn such unconstitutional, undemocratic means to seize power,” the former deputy prime minister tweeted.

“A major setback for the Arab Spring. Whatever the ends, the means are not justified,” he added.

Anwar and his comrades in the federal opposition pact Pakatan Rakyat (PR) have often been accused of attempting to lead an Arab-style revolution in Malaysia to topple the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition after its more than half a century rule.

But BN emerged victors again after the May 5 polls and continued its unbroken rule for its 13th term - an outcome that Anwar and PR lawmakers have been fighting to reverse through mammoth rallies nationwide.

Months before the polls, a confident Anwar had predicted the coming of a “Malaysia Spring” here, noting that much like the fall of Mubarak during the height of the Arab uprising in 2011, BN would also be taken down from its perch.

Five decades of BN rule, he insisted in an interview with business news wire Bloomberg, will end in the next polls.

“The trend for freedom and democracy is irreversible. We should be able to do much better,” he had said.