There is quite a difference between what Wan Azizah Ismail would like to do and what she knows she has to, and will, do. Ten years from now, for example, the 56-year-old would like 'to imagine herself conducting a peaceful life and spending more time with her six children, grandchildren and relatives'. Yet she knows it is an unlikely scenario. 'My husband will probably need help, and I have to do what is right for my country and for my husband.'
That is, after all, what she has already done for over a decade, since she was forced to deputise for her husband - Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Mr Anwar returned to active politics last year after spending years in jail on what most people believe were politically motivated charges. He has since been elected to Parliament, taking over the seat in Penang's Permatang Pauh constituency that Dr Azizah had won in three previous elections. And he is poised to officially take over the leadership of the People's Justice Party, or Keadilan, of which Dr Azizah is chairwoman. The party has its roots in a non-governmental organisation she established in 1999 to fight for the release of her husband.
These changes are welcomed by Dr Azizah. 'It is what I prefer. I feel I have come full circle. I was the wife of a politician, then I became a politician, and now I am going back to being the wife of a politician. It is fine. I am first and foremost a wife and mother.'
She also admits candidly, 'I will never be as good a politician as Anwar. It is right that he takes charge'.
Things are not quite like that, though. Dr Azizah lacks Mr Anwar's oratorical skills and, unlike her husband, who was a firebrand student activist in the 1970s, she never got into student politics. Educated first at a Catholic school, then at an elite private school, she went to Ireland to study ophthalmology while still very young. In Dublin, Malaysian politics was never a concern and she never developed political ambitions nor much political acumen. Still, when forced to enter politics, she held her own, mostly thanks to a different set of qualities that turned her into an icon of the Reformasi movement that her husband had started. To most Malaysians, she is no longer simply Mr Anwar's wife.
