Malaysia PM Anwar posts heartfelt thanks and birthday wishes as wife turns 70
Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is not one who shies away from expressing love for his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, on social media.
On Saturday night, he wished his wife happy birthday as she turned 70.
“A strong, loving and devoted person, woman, wife. A mother who never gets tired of loving. I am forever grateful,” Datuk Seri Anwar wrote on his Facebook and Instagram pages.
“Without Azizah by my side, there is no way I would be able to carry out a heavy mandate right now. I pray that Azizah will always be under His protection. Happy birthday!”
Accompanying his message is a photo taken of the couple when Anwar held his first press conference as the prime minister of Malaysia on Nov 24.
When the couple celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in 2020, Anwar also tweeted words of love and appreciation for his wife.
“Forty years of kindness, 40 years of courage, 40 years of loyalty, 40 years of strength.
“Through thick and thin, I am everything I am today because of the love of my life and the grace of Allah,” he wrote.
While Dr Wan Azizah did not respond to her husband’s post directly, she shared an old photo of them together with Anwar’s former defence lawyer Christopher Fernando on her Facebook page on Monday.
She wrote: “Happy to receive birthday greetings from the family of the late Christopher Fernando (Aris Rizal) Anwar’s advocate. May his soul rest in peace”
Fernando was in Anwar’s defence team when the latter was charged for abuse of power in 1999. He died of heart attack in 2008.
Datuk Seri Wan Azizah played an instrumental role during Anwar’s decades-long struggle to return to political power.
She helped set up Parti Keadilan Rakyat and became its first president in 1999 after Anwar was removed as deputy premier and jailed.
She also ran for elections in Permatang Pauh, her husband’s seat in Penang, and retained it between 1999 and 2008, and again from 2015 to 2018.
She became Malaysia’s first female deputy premier when Pakatan Harapan won federal power in 2018, although the stint was short-lived with the coalition’s collapse in 2020.