OPPOSITION leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said she is fine with being a “seat-warmer” prime minister for husband Anwar Ibrahim, who is in jail for a second sodomy charge.

“I don’t mind being the interim prime minister (…) It’s part of the plan,” she told UpFront host Mehdi Hasan when asked if she would give up her seat for Anwar.

“It’s not a position I’m after. I’m after change of government. The BN government is one that we need to change.”

Dr Wan Azizah said this is because Anwar is simply the better person for the job.

“Because frankly, he’s a better leader. He’s a better administrator. He’s a better guy for the job. Why not?” she said when asked why shouldn’t she lead the country if she managed to take government under her own leadership.

Dr Wan Azizah, who is PKR president, said polls also show that Anwar is still the most popular candidate for prime minister and she doesn’t mind conceding her position to him when he is released.

A short video of the interview was posted on UpFront’s Facebook page and had since been shared more than 300 times.

Dr Wan Azizah also responded to questions about her political partnership with former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the person who backed Anwar’s prosecution, and whether it effectively constituted a sort of deal with the devil for power.

“We didn’t ask him to join,” she said. “He joined us out of his own free will.

“It’s not an alliance with the devil,” she added. “If the man himself, Anwar Ibrahim, could forgive… and, as the saying goes, to err is human, to forgive divine.”

When asked about PKR’s weak position in Parliament and why it wasn’t doing that well in the polls, she said: “Malaysians are divided in the sense we don’t have a free press. So, they do not know, they can’t make an informed decision of what we can offer.

“It’s not a level playing field. The gerrymandering has gone so far… of course, we have actually stopped it. We managed to stop the delineation process,” adding that “we face a lot of problems… but that doesn’t mean that we have to give up.” – May 12, 2017.

* The interview is available on this link.