From Indonesia with love

I am sure many of us listened to the interview with Sumiwati. She is a roommate to the unfortunate Robengah, the Indonesian maid to Minister Rais Yatim and wife Masnah Rais.

Sumiwati denied the presence of any opportunity for the act in question to be committed. She said Rais would come back to the house and go upstairs immediately. There was little interaction and in fact, Sumiwati said, Rais hardly knew the maids. There were 3 of them, sharing one room downstairs. It's impossible for anything to happen if there were always 3 of them.

However, Robengah painted a different and perhaps contradictory picture. She said Rais was nice to her and often gave her gifts and other things and she usually opens the gates. So they had every opportunity to eyeball one another.

It looks like this episode surrounding Rais will be feedstuff for the political canons in days to come. The only way for these innuendos to end is for Rais to take legal action against those he thinks have aspersed and libeled him. He must seek legal redress.

It is to Rais's discredit to come out with a denial so many weeks after the news about the incident first leaked. This has resulted in endless rounds of speculation that, the intervening period was sufficient for Rais or his supporter to dispatch someone to Indonesia, seek out poor Robingah and 'persuaded' here to retract and change her story. But her story was sent to the US and other embassies and even sent to the Malaysian government. Meaning, the then PM and the then DPM knew of the stories.

The PM's answer of 'why now' was unfortunate, I think. A better answer would be, if there is any crime or wrong committed in Malaysia, it must be reported here. Since it wasn't reported here, there was no need to investigate. Since it was only reported in Indonesia, the investigating authority is Indonesia's. And if Indonesia has said nothing of that sort happened, it's no business of Malaysia to question the integrity of such an investigation. End of story.

What shall not end are the implications on Malaysian politics. Whatever one wishes to think of the incident, the political future of Rais is sealed. The PM can't go face an election with disabilities a plenty. Nor can Rais face the public with a straight face.

It looks like Rais's politics will come to an ignominious closure.