PRIME MINISTER Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is currently in hot water for an inappropriate remark made at his meet and greet “Temu Anwar Negeri Sembilan” event recently held at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) in Nilai.
During the event, a form six student named Adriana from SMK Tunku Ampuan Durah stood up and asked the prime minister two questions on how the younger generation and the government can lead Malaysia to becoming a first world nation and the government’s effort in recovering the country’s currency value.
After asking the questions, Anwar was quite impressed with Adriana’s set of questions to the point of commenting how he would have “asked for her phone number if he was younger”, adding that he was only joking as his wife often watches the show.
The event’s moderator also chimed in by asking Anwar to “give him her number” if she handed it to him.
The joke did not land well with several parties, including Bersatu’s Sasha Lyna Abdul Latif who in a statement on her Facebook page, dubbed the remark as “inappropriate, discriminatory and sexist”.
“It was a classic and stunning display of discriminatory, bigoted and sexist language by the 75-year-old Prime Minister to 18-year-old Adriana.
“In no circumstances is this kind of language acceptable; in a public televised forum, it is doubly shocking.
“What sort of example is the country’s PM setting for the youth of the nation? That it’s fine to ignore the intelligence and capacity of women, and instead treat them as an object of flirtation?” Sasha said in her post.
She then pointed out that such a question would have not been posed if it was a man or boy asking.
“To sum up, it is never okay for a leader and a leader of a nation to utter such words to a student in the guise of being humorous.
“Anwar should have known better and the episode reflects ill upon him. This is a man fond of emphasising ‘civilised discourse’ from every forum and pulpit. But civilised discourse seems to have deserted him on this occasion,” she added.
Sasha then called for the prime minister to “accept that he had made a blatantly sexist remark in a public forum” and apologise not only to the student concerned but to the nation as well.
