The wife of Malaysia’s next prime minister said it was her husband’s destiny to lead the country, despite opposition attempts to link him to corruption and murder.
In an interview on Friday, Rosmah Mansor said the attacks on her husband, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, have made the couple more mature and stronger.
“If we had not gone through this we would not have known what resilience is all about,” Rosmah said in her first interview with an international news agency.
Najib is scheduled to take over from Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi early next month.
“You must also believe in destiny. If it is meant to be for my husband to be [the prime minister] it is meant to be,” Rosmah said.
“Let’s not do anything unethical to stop it. It is his turn,” Rosmah said.
Opposition leaders and independent commentators writing on blogs have tried to link Najib and Rosmah to the killing of a Mongolian woman and accused him of corruption in government deals to buy French submarines and Russian jets. Najib has rejected the accusations.
Asked about the allegations linking them to the killing, Rosmah said she ignores such “mischievous statements from mischievous people.”
Rosmah, speaking in an annex of her sprawling official residence, indicated she was disappointed when Najib was overlooked for the prime minister’s post in 2003. At the time, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad appointed Abdullah to succeed him.
“When Mahathir chose Badawi we never went against it because we believed that ‘fine it is his time, it is his destiny’ and we went on with our lives,” Rosmah said.
“We respected the fact that he was chosen and we were not spiteful, we were not hostile, we were not undermining [Abdullah], we were not planning or plotting. Now it is my husband’s turn so I hope everybody will be able to accept that,” she said.
The opposition contends that Najib was involved in the slaying of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a 28-year-old Mongolian translator who was having an affair with a close friend of Najib.
Government lawyers say Shaariibuu was shot in October 2006. Her body was then blown up in a forest outside Kuala Lumpur, and only fragments were found.
Prosecutors alleged that Abdul Razak Baginda, Najib’s friend, ordered Shaariibuu killed after she started pestering him for money.
Abdul Razak was acquitted last October of abetting the slaying.
A court is scheduled to decide next month whether to convict two police officers charged with carrying out the killing.
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