Kak Wan back in the ring
No one could tell whether the choice of Dr Wan Azizah was based on recommendations from the Selangor PKR meeting. But there was no political bureau meeting to discuss the candidature and it can only be assumed that it was the decision of PKR’s most powerful man. PKR has always and still continues to revolve around Anwar.
Joceline Tan, The Star
Many in PKR thought that Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail had gone into semi-retirement mode since the general election but her political career has been resurrected now that she is replacing her husband Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in Kajang.
WHEN Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail declared that she wanted to move on instead of crying over her husband’s sodomy conviction, very few had imagined that she was about to move on to bigger things.
The former Permatang Pauh MP had kept a low profile since the last general election. Her occasional public appearances had often been as the wife of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim rather than the president of PKR.
Her chief duty over the last few years has been to accompany her husband in and out of court. She rarely gives her opinion on party matters and would sit quietly beside her husband whose personality dominates everyone else’s.
Well, everyone has completely under-estimated her because the diminutive lady, known for her trademark gloved hand and folding fan, is the candidate for the Kajang by-election.
Dr Wan Azizah’s name had been floated after Anwar’s guilty verdict on Friday but not many took it seriously because after all, she was in semi-retirement mode.
After all, Kak Wan, as she is known in the party, is 61, a doting grandmother to her growing brood of grandkids and not a political animal like her husband.
Public reaction to the announcement has been generally positive. Had this happened in any other party, it would have been slammed as nepotism but there is not very much that one can fault Dr Wan Azizah for.
She is a lovely lady and her devotion to her husband’s political and legal woes is admired, even by those who do not admire Anwar.
She is seen as the epitome of a Malay-Muslim wife, the long-suffering wife of an ambitious and controversial politician embroiled in more than his share of sex-related controversies. Her candidature will pitch her head-on with Barisan Nasional’s Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun for the women vote.
Unlike Anwar who had problems with the Malay vote in Kajang, Dr Wan Azizah will be able to ride on the kesian or sympathy card among the Malays.
Her candidature, said a Penang lawyer, is also about sending the message that the courts have not only punished Anwar but is also punishing his family.
“That is the psychology behind it – to highlight that she is suffering. Putting Azizah there is to exploit the emotional factor,” said the lawyer.
Overall, Dr Wan Azizah is a much less problematic candidate than Anwar.
“She has been seen as a passive president but she helped hold the party together in the early days and conducted herself in a reasonable manner, without any controversies,” said strategy and management consultant Khoo Kay Peng.
The pro-Pakatan Rakyat news portal Malaysian Chronicle has trumpeted her candidature in a big way: “First Woman Mentri Besar?”
Dr Wan Azizah’s problems in Kajang will come from within her own party. Her candidature was apparently not as unanimous as it appeared to be, given the glaring absence of deputy president and Selangor PKR chief Azmin Ali at the press conference to announce her candidature.
Those aligned to Azmin were also missing, namely Wanita chief and Ampang MP Zuraidah Kamaruddin, Selangor Youth chief Azmizam Zaman Huri and deputy Selangor chief Amiruddin Shari.
Naming a candidate is a big thing, yet all these Selangor big-guns were not there.
A party source said the Selangor PKR leadership had held an impromptu meeting after the Pakatan Rakyat Convention in the Alam Setia convention centre on Saturday. Azmin did not attend but his loyalist Zuraidah chaired the meeting to discuss suitable names to replace Anwar in Kajang.
The battle line was clearly drawn between the Azmin camp and those aligned to Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim. Both camps agreed that the candidate must be a national figure but they differed on who it should be.
Hulu Selangor chief Nazar Yakin, who is with the Azmin camp, proposed Zuraidah and Rafizi for consideration.
Zuraidah is an anak jati, a native to Sekamat which is a Malay enclave in Kajang. She still has a home there where she has been staying since the start of the Kajang Move.
But the Khalid camp, led by Kelana Jaya chief Senator Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud, pressed for Dr Wan Azizah. The Khalid camp said their president is known as the Iron Lady and she will have the women and sympathy vote.
The Azmin camp argued that reverting to Dr Wan Azizah would be seen as retrogressive and would not send the right signals to young people out there whom the party wants to attract.
“We respect Kak Wan but we don’t want to be seen as a party that is only about one family. It will be exploited by our opponents,” said the source.
Amiruddin, who is also Batu Caves assemblyman, was then assigned to convey the list of names to the party leadership.
Picking Dr Wan Azizah is a logical short-term decision but, said social historian Dr Neil Khor, this kind of decisions may stunt the evolution and growth of the party in the longer term.
Some of the Selangor party leaders were puzzled when Anwar claimed he had initially offered the Kajang candidacy to his secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution because the latter’s name was not raised at the Selangor meeting. Very few actually believed that Saifuddin, who is Kedah-born, would turn down the opportunity given that it is a “sure-win” seat.
No one could tell whether the choice of Dr Wan Azizah was based on recommendations from the Selangor PKR meeting. But there was no political bureau meeting to discuss the candidature and it can only be assumed that it was the decision of PKR’s most powerful man. PKR has always and still continues to revolve around Anwar.
