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Perspective on speculation of Anwar-Najib deal

COMMENT | Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has tried to get PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim to agree to a deal with him once before.

After last Friday's visit by Najib to a convalescent Anwar in Hospital Kuala Lumpur, it has been bruited about that a deal between both may be in the works.

The day following Najib's visit, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi also visited Anwar.

This gave another fillip to the speculative mills that a deal's in the offing.

After all, in a topsy-turvy Malaysian political world, virtuoso transformations of adversary into ally, a deal between the PKR leader and adviser to the new-fangled opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan, and Umno's top guns, cannot really be ruled out.

But this stream of speculation has to be amnesiac about past and current events to be plausible.

Recall mid-June 2013, about six weeks after the 13th general election, when Anwar was in Bali and then in Jakarta for visits to Indonesian top-notchers who like and respect Anwar more than any other Malaysian leader.

In Denpasar, President Bambang Yudhoyono wanted to speak to Anwar about GE13.

According to people whom Anwar spoke to on his return, Yudhoyono let on that there is cheating in elections all over the world, but the Indonesian president pronounced himself aghast at what he believed was its inordinate scale in Malaysia's GE13.

After commiserating with Yudhoyono, who had expected that Anwar coalition's Pakatan Rakyat (now defunct) would win GE13,
Anwar flew to Jakarta to meet with other Indonesian notables, among whom was Jusuf Kala, the vice president...

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