FORMER Umno stalwart Sanusi Junid, who died this morning at the age of 74, was a man of ideas and some outlandish ones at that.

As minister of agriculture in Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s cabinet in the late 1980s, Sanusi came up with the controversial idea of planting padi on rooftops.

But that was not the only ingenious idea he proposed to the chagrin of many Malaysians. He also suggested contests to pluck grey hair and “to romance your wife” to forming a musical group of farmers and to encourage people to drink more coconut water.

The Kedah-born politician was close to fellow state native, Dr Mahathir, and followed him when the latter first left Umno in 2008 over dissatisfaction with then prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

He would again follow the former prime minister years later when the latter formed opposition party Bersatu.

Sanusi was appointed as head of Bersatu’s disciplinary board. In Umno, he had served as a vice-president and secretary-general.

After leaving Umno in 2008, he received a letter stating that he was “relieved of his duties”, or in common terminology, “sacked”, as president of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). 

This prompted Dr Mahathir, already retired by then, to write a blog post questioning IIUM’s move and accusing Abdullah’s administration of using institutions to punish those who disagreed with Umno or the ruling Barisan Nasional.

Sanusi started his professional career as a trainee officer at the Standard Chartered Bank in Seremban in 1963, where he courted politics by becoming an ordinary member of Umno.

His rise in politics was swift. A year after becoming party member, Sanusi was appointed as secretary of Umno Youth of the Seremban branch and in 1966, treasurer of the Umno East Seremban division.

Sanusi became information chief of Umno East Seremban division and later the division secretary in 1967.

In 1981, Sanusi was appointed minister of regional and rural development and in 1986, minister of agriculture. 

Sanusi also served as Kedah’s seventh menteri besar between 1996 and 1999.

After crossing the political divide and joining Pakatan Harapan, Sanusi’s views of his political nemeses experienced a change.

Of DAP’s Lim Kit Siang, he said the former was not as bad as he was made out to be by the Umno propaganda unit because he was not the one who caused damage to Malay institutions, such as Mara and Tabung Haji, among other abuses allegedly committed by Umno.

“How nice it would be if many Malay leaders are like Lim Kit Siang,” he once wrote in his blog.

Apart from the national language and English, Sanusi was said to be fluent in both Tamil and the Hokkien dialect.

Sanusi died while waiting to perform his subuh prayers, according to his son Akramshah. He showed no signs of ill health and had been carrying on his usual routine, still participating in political activities.

Just last night, he attended the launch of Pakatan Harapan’s manifesto for the 14th general election. 

But he won’t be around to see whether the opposition’s bid for regime change will come true. – March 9, 2018.