Fascinating stories about Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, from a man who was close to both of them.
IT’S amazing that when it comes to politics in Malaysia, things either revolve around the same old issues or the same old personalities.
Like these two who still continue to make the headlines – Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Over the past few days, I have been trying unsuccessfully to get a copy of the former Prime Minister’s memoirs, A Doctor in the House, which has generated much interest since its launch more than two weeks ago.
Having missed out on the deadline for the collective buying discount offer at the office, the last hunt was at Borders in Tropicana City Mall in Petaling Jaya on Monday, only to find out that the latest batch of copies had just been sold out.
Love him or loathe him but this is one person whom Malaysians find hard to ignore. The PM for 22 years may have stepped down eight years ago but there’s no waning of his stature or influence among many, just as there seems no end to aversion and scorn from others.
The other character who seems to be forever making the news is of course Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, a former blue-eyed boy of Dr Mahathir, who rose through his patronage to occupy the second most important position in the country before being unceremoniously sacked and jailed in 1998 on sodomy and corruption charges.
After a long hiatus, poster-size pictures of him made the front pages on Tuesday, next to headlines denying that he was the man in a shocker of a sex video with a hooker, unveiled to selected media representatives a day earlier.
Anwar has since lodged a police report citing criminal intimidation and defamation against Datuk T who exposed the video, and the police have begun probing the case under the law pertaining to possession and distribution of pornographic material.
(Datuk T stands for Datuk Trio or Three Datuks, who have been identified as Tan Sri Rahim Tamby Chik, Datuk Shazryl Eskay Abdullah and Datuk Shuib Lazim).
Datuk T, meanwhile, had said he would surrender the footage to an independent public commission and urged the media fraternity and non-government organisations to take the lead in setting one up.
As some of these developments were taking place on Tuesday, I was having a chat and coffee with Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, a man whose life has been intertwined with that of Dr Mahathir and Anwar and one who knows a lot about both of them.
