KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 — Smear tactics may be a reality of vicious politics, but Nurul Nuha Anwar said she will never accept the allegations aimed at father Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim both online and in the media.
From attacks on his personal character as well as claims on his supposed thirst for political power, the second daughter of the jailed opposition leader said he was nothing like what detractors sought to portray him to be.
For the 31 year-old, the Anwar she knows and loves is a family man, a doting grandfather and a voracious reader.
“People have tainted him so much so that we cannot distinguish the person he is often made out to be.
“But the truth is, the person he is made out to be is different from the person he actually is,” Nurul Nuha told Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.
She said growing up in the Anwar household was never easy; simple trips to the shopping mall and even watching the occasional movie at the cinema that most families take for granted were rare luxuries.
“I mean we do go to malls sometimes to have dinner, to shop, and when people greeted Anwar, he would readily shake their hands and pose for photographs with them, it’s just who he is as a person,” she said, pausing between each sentence before continuing.
“It can be restrictive at times… but we need to have a sense of normalcy.”
To make up, the family would catch movies together at home, where Anwar would often play with his grandchildren as Nurul Nuha said he loved to do.
Her younger sister, Nurul Ilham Anwar, said Anwar discouraged his family from watching television during the weekend and instead, always pushed the need for reading.
“He just loves reading. All of us would be in a room together with him, each reading different books, and that to him would be how the family should spend their time together.
“This is why we bring his favourite books and read quotes from them when we gather every night outside the Sungai Buloh prison,” she told Malay Mail Online.
On February 10, the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s 2014 ruling that reversed Anwar’s acquittal of sodomising former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and sentenced the Permatang Pauh lawmaker to five years’ jail.
Anwar’s family members have submitted an application for a royal pardon in hopes of freeing the leader from his Sungai Buloh cell and allowing him to retain his Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat.
