I remember, in 1992, some of us made an official fence-mending trip to Australia after Dr Mahathir Mohamad earned the ‘recalcitrant’ label. Our then-international trade and industry minister led the trip. In Perth and Canberra, one of the questions asked by the journalists of the minister was, “Are you a fundamentalist?”

Minister Rafidah Aziz was a lecturer and was supposed to pursue a Colombo Plan scholarship for a doctorate when the then-PM, Hussein Onn, invited her to join his cabinet as parliamentary secretary based in the Finance Ministry. She never looked back.

Being also an intellectual and an intuitive scholar, she understood concepts and ideas well. So, most journalists who asked questions without much thought usually got their pound of flesh taken, too. She is the same with journalists as with officers; whether in Malaysia or overseas. Most unassured journalists or officers cannot handle her.