Just sharing this historical photo (historical for me) taken in 2007 at Tasik Kenyir, Terengganu. It was during the Asian Renaissance program, a five-day retreat aimed at young people from various political and civil society backgrounds.
I emceed a talk given by Saudara Anwar (how we were instructed to address him during the program – so socialist 🙂 ). At the time, he had just been released from prison and was in the process of rebuilding PKR. If I remember correctly, PKR had only 1 seat in parliament, and even then it was a near-miss: Wan Azizah won Permatang Pauh in the 2004 General Election with a very slim majority after five rounds of vote-counting. PKR reversed its fortune during the 2008 GE and since then has moved from strength to strength. A truly Malaysian comeback story.
One thing I remembered was Anwar asking me to “kirim salam” to Dato’ Azman Mokhtar (now Tan Sri). Dato’ Azman was the head of Khazanah Nasional at the time, i.e., my boss’s boss – I was a junior exec at Khazanah. Both of them were schoolmates at MCKK. I had never kirim the salam since I went to the event senyap2 without my employer’s knowledge, let alone consent. Politics were very different back then.
Suhaimi Ramly 