Anwar and the ‘Oh Mega’ affair

But when Dr Wan Azizah was persistently queried about the Omega watch, she still insisted that she had possession of the timepiece, reported widely to be a special gift from the Saudi Arabian government burnished with the official Saudi crest. When reporters pressed her to produce the Omega watch to quell suspicion, Dr Wan Azizah appeared rattled, denouncing the line of questioning with this furious riposte: “You are not the prosecutor!”

By Azmi Anshar, New Straits Times

A VERY expensive Omega gentleman’s wristwatch is likely worn and associated with killer style, at least when the chronometer is pitched by Hollywood scions George Clooney and Daniel Craig, and that impossibly debonair but fictional character James Bond.

Inquire about the Omega’s list price at any marquee stores, you’re bound to be either startled or impressed — anything between RM6,000 and RM20,000, even after a hefty discount is negotiated.

The Omega watch’s high fashion existentialism would have been simply confined to an object of lust, had it not been sensationalised by the dramatic revelation of a political sex video — a man, allegedly opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in a sexual tryst with a Chinese prostitute of barely legal age.

The existence of the video was revealed by Datuk Shazryl Eskay Abdullah, close businessman associate suddenly turned whistle- blower at a “peep show” for the media at Carcosa Seri Negara on March 21, backed by former Malacca chief minister Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Tamby Chik — who knows the knottiness of sex scandals after roiling in one in 1994 — and Perkasa treasurer-general and ex-senator Datuk Shuib Lazim.

Shazryl claimed the only reason he stumbled on the recording of the sex episode was because Anwar, after leaving the hotel room where the sexual act purportedly occurred, left behind his Omega watch and instructed Shazryl to look for it.

The video is now a cause célèbre for Anwar’s friends and foes — one unwaveringly shouting conspiracy to despatch a “body double” and the other convinced that Anwar was finally caught, literally, with his pants down.

While Anwar naturally dismissed the video as defamation, two issues stood out in his packed retaliatory press conference.

First, Anwar confirmed he possessed an Omega watch but was “kept” by his wife, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. Second, Anwar insisted that at the time of the video recording, he was updating his Twitter account, alluding to it as an “alibi”. His rationale? You can’t be tweeting and having sex at the same time.

However, there are snags with Anwar’s two “alibis”, and despite persistent demands by the press, he and Dr Wan Azizah repeatedly declined to produce the Omega watch, which Shazryl claimed is in his possession; and his Twitter updates, according to a Malaysiakini probe, showed no entry between 10.23pm and 10.45pm on Feb 21, the time the alleged sexual act was recorded.

Dr Wan Azizah then staged a defiant defence of the Omega quandary in an April 5 press conference in the ironic presence of Karpal Singh, the same DAP member of parliament who deployed the D.P. Vijandran sex tape 21 years ago to besmirch the then MIC secretary-general’s political career after the then deputy Dewan Rakyat speaker was caught on tape having sex with his girlfriend.

Here’s the irony: there were no opposition howls of derision then in 1989 of the “dirty/sleazy” politics Karpal meticulously executed.

Today, Karpal remains blasé about the 1989 affair as he coyly remarked that the so-called Anwar video can be shown to MPs, even as he sits beside Dr Wan Azizah while she launched a ponderous diatribe against “dirty/sleazy” politics.

In any case, the PKR president seemed impervious to Karpal’s 21-year old disingenuousness as she announced that she and her family viewed the video and were absolutely sure that the man in it was not Anwar.

But when Dr Wan Azizah was persistently queried about the Omega watch, she still insisted that she had possession of the timepiece, reported widely to be a special gift from the Saudi Arabian government burnished with the official Saudi crest.

When reporters pressed her to produce the Omega watch to quell suspicion, Dr Wan Azizah appeared rattled, denouncing the line of questioning with this furious riposte: “You are not the prosecutor!”

Dr Wan Azizah seemed to be not doing herself or Anwar a favour by stubbornly declining to produce the Omega watch.

Conversely, when Anwar was posed with the time gap in his Twitter updates, he deflected it with this assertion, “never mind, we have the record (of Twitter updates).”

What can be inferred by Anwar’s Omega and Twitter hold-ups? For as long as Anwar is unable to produce the celebrated Omega watch, suspicion will continue to shadow his denials.

As for the so-called Twitter “alibis”, sceptics can dismiss them as “superfluous” because a Twitter/Facebook account, especially one run by a very busy politician, is always managed by an army of assistants.

A case in point: Uppercaise, an anonymous blog handled by a veteran Malaysian journalist critical of the Barisan Nasional and the government, had this report of Anwar’s voraciously Twitter account on the day of the sexual tryst: “He carried on Tweeting from 5.04-6.11pm, then 7.53-9.03pm. There is a gap in the night-time Facebook entries, between 9.03pm and 11.19pm; then he carried on Tweeting until 2am (now it’s Feb 22) and sporadically until 5.15am. He resumed at 8.25am (Feb 22). When does he ever get any sleep?”

While a Royal Commission of Inquiry on the video is possible only after police complete investigations, Malaysians have suggested a scientific method to verify the identity of the man in the video: analyse it against the same facial recognition software to spot criminals and terrorists.

If the software exonerates Anwar, then he would have won a gigantic moral case to boost his political ambition to conquer Putrajaya but if it is unmistakably Anwar, then Malaysians will desert and severely punish him at the ballot box by consigning him to indefinite political hell.

If Anwar’s sycophants are still unable to accept the official verdict or if they are the forgiving sort, they could insouciantly accept him as their leader, flawed character, warts and all.