Under fire for her earlier statements on the issue, the deputy prime minister's daughter, Nurulhidayah Ahmad Zahid, revealed today that she, too, had worked blue-collar jobs.
She defends herself after a popular parody account, Amran Fans, urged her to do blue-collar work following her father's challenge to Malaysians to fill the jobs now done by foreigners.
"Do you know how much I made after graduation? RM1,700. My father wasn't even minister then.
"When I was in school, I used to secretly work in the food court in Jaya Jusco, Alpha Angle in Wangsa Maju for pocket money," Nurulhidayah said on her Instagram account.
She was responding to netizens who said Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his family are "elite" and do not understand what the rakyat are going through.
Nurulhidayah shot back that she, too, is rakyat, and she would not even respond to these attacks if she was part of the elite.
'Problems need collective soultions'
"I don't belong to a royal family," she said.
"So please, instead of me being in your shoes, you be in my shoes.
"Lots of problems need collective solutions, and not collective nuisance," she said.
Nurulhidayah had earlier said those who slandered her would need to seek forgiveness from her in the afterlife.
Zahid issued the challenge to Malaysian youths following complaints over an influx of foreign workers, who take up low-waged, blue-collar jobs.
Concerns rose after Dhaka and Putrajaya signed an agreement to allow Bangladeshi general workers into Malaysia.
There are 1.5 million workers in the Bangladeshi recruitment database, who can now apply for jobs in Malaysia.
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