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Hadi Azmi

Controversial Malaysian blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, who was an erstwhile ally of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, passed away at 73 in the UK, where he had been living in self-imposed exile to avoid arrest.
A spearhead of the “Free Anwar Campaign”, Raja Petra was an early frontman of Anwar’s “Reformasi” movement following his abrupt fall from power in 1998 and his subsequent incarceration for sodomy, which was rubbished as politically driven.
However, in recent years, the blogger who left Malaysia to avoid criminal charges became a harsh Anwar critic through his website Malaysia Today, which publishes alleged insider information detrimental to the now prime minister.
The news of Raja Petra’s passing was confirmed by his wife, Marina Lee Abdullah, on Tuesday morning on her husband’s website following reports of his death in the Malaysian press.
“It is with great sadness that I am informing you that my beloved husband, Raja Petra Kamarudin has just passed away at 11.26pm UK time on Monday 9th Sept 2024 in Manchester, UK,” Marina wrote.

“The cause of his passing was a blood infection that spread to his lungs and later to his liver.”
Anwar offered his condolences to his former political comrade-in-arms in a short Facebook post. “I join in mourning and pray that God will forgive his soul and that his family will be given perseverance and a high level of perseverance, God willing.”
Instrumental in drumming up support for Anwar and his PKN (now PKR) party through the nascent internet in the late 1990s, Raja Petra has established a reputation for being a well-informed writer with a clear insight into the inner workings of the opaque and secretive Mahathir Mohamad administration.
However, his staunch support for Anwar faltered in 2011 when he said that the then-opposition figure had lost his credibility after failing to mobilise a coup to overthrow prime minister Najib Razak from power.
“It is not so easy to criticise. Putting our words into action, that is more difficult. But if we fail even as an opposition, the people will certainly not trust us as a government,” Raja Petra told local TV station TV3 in an exclusive interview that year.

His writings have led to him being twice detained under the feared Internal Security Act (ISA), first in 2001 for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government and again in 2008 for penning an article allegedly insulting Islam, which also led to his website being blocked by the government.
A holdover of British colonial rule for use against communist insurgents, the ISA permits a two-year jail sentence without trial, which can be renewed indefinitely. It was only repealed in 2012.
In addition to Anwar, eulogies have poured in from the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN), which found common cause with Raja Petra in recent years.
“His services and contributions as a writer and political analyst of the country have impacted the country’s political history,” said PN lawmaker Wan Ahmad Fayhsal on Facebook.
PKR’s Ahmad Azri, who once organised a vigil in solidarity with the writer after his incarceration, said that whether one “loves him or hates him”, the late blogger’s articles carried weight in Malaysia.
“Whatever it is, to me, he deserves to be remembered as an early reformer who ultimately shaped the evolution of this country,” he said.


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Malaysian PM offers condolences to his comrade-turned-adversary, while opposition figures pay tribute


Malaysian PM offers condolences to his comrade-turned-adversary, while opposition figures pay tribute.


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Malaysian politics