The late Daim about Anwar: "Anwar doesn't like to read"

OPINION | The late Daim about Anwar: "Anwar doesn't like to read"


27 Nov 2025 • 2:00 PM MYT


TheRealNehruism
An award-winning Newswav creator, Bebas News columnist & ex-FMT columnist

Image credit: Keluar Sekejap / Malay Mail / Al Jazeera


The interview that Daim’s widow, Naimah, gave on the Keluar Sekejap podcast has been trending across social media. My feed alone has been flooded with posts about her appearance from multiple people, although I do not subscribe to their page.


The way these posts describe him, it is as if Daim was a towering statesman who made monumental contributions to the Malay community, a year after he is gone, to me at least, also sounds incredulous.


To me, the claims sounds incredulous, because if that was truly the case, it doesn't explain why Daim received so little public backing in the final year of his life, when he was facing intense scrutiny and prosecution from the government. Even upon his passing—given his status as a Tun, a long-time minister, and a billionaire—public reaction in support of him was rather muted and restrained.


In the way I see it, If a rubber tapper from a village of fifty families dies and a thousand people show up to his funeral, we can say that that rubber tapper is likely person who contributed immensely to his society. What else would explain why so many paid their last respect to him, when he was just a humble rubber tapper from a small hamlet.


By that logic, a man of Daim’s stature, who was at the top of the country for decades and was immensely wealthy to boot, who is said to have always hold the welfare of the people at heart, should have drawn 20 thousand or 200 thousand of thousands to his funeral. Instead, his funeral just drew around 200 people. This is far too small a figure for a person who is said to have selflessly loved a great number of people with all of his heart.

So, was there anything interesting in Naimah’s appearance on Keluar Sekejap?

In truth, she repeated the familiar narrative many of us have heard for years:

• that Daim was already wealthy before entering politics
• that he entered public life out of national service, not greed
• that he always had good intentions toward Anwar
• that he helped Anwar repeatedly
• that Anwar irrationally blamed him for the 1990s downfall
• that Daim never conspired against him
• that he even visited Anwar in prison and reconciled with him after GE14

According to this narrative, Anwar was so appreciative of Daim, that he even once told Daim:


“When I become Prime Minister, don’t go anywhere—I want you as my economic advisor.”


Yet after the 2022 election, when Anwar won the election and became the PM , everything flipped. Rather than gratitude or appreciation, Anwar’s administration launched relentless investigations against Daim—investigations that continued even after his death. In this telling of events, Anwar becomes the ingrate, and Daim the loyal friend stabbed in the back.


This narrative also appears to be be designed to a direct rebuttal to the dominant anti-Daim storyline that has circulated for decades: 

• that Daim’s vast fortune was siphoned from national coffers, that he epitomised corruption and cronyism, and 
• that he played a major role in the conspiracy to bring down Anwar in the 1990s because Anwar challenged his methods.

I won’t offer my two cents on which narrative is true.


I tihnk it is enough for me say that that the reputation of people like Daim and Anwar is not likely going to be settled by by truth or justice—but by power and authority.


Whichever side holds power will determine which narrative eventually becomes “official.”


That said, I find aspects of Naimah’s narrative unrealistic.


For one, like I mentioned earlier,her potrayal of Daim as someone deeply concerned for society does not align with the public’s muted response to his passing. But another strikingly odd detail is her claim that Daim was a voracious reader—yet he supposedly thought Anwar “does not like to read.”


This becomes unbelievable when paired with her next claim: that despite thinking of Anwar as a person who is not well read, Daim still proposed Anwar as his successor for Finance Minister.


If Daim was truly wise and knowledgeable as he is potrayed, why would he believe a man like Anwwar - with no background, interest, or aptitude in economics and who himself believed was averse to reading and gaining knowledge, could be shaped into a competent finance minister in a short time with a little guidance?


What kind of “wise, knowledgeable and well-read” person would adopt such an irrational view?


Now to explain the discrepancy in premise that though he was a wise and knowledgeable person, and though he saw that Anwar as lacking wisdom and knowledge, DAim still was a good friend and patron to Anwar, to the point that he proposed Anwar to become the next Finance minister, I find Bertrand Russell’s observation to be useful.


According to Russell :“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”


By that logic, perhaps Anwar was far more intelligent than the report about him suggest— that Daim probably did not make a harebrained decision of hiring Anwar although he believed that Anwar was not intelligent, well read, competent or capable - that Daim likely believed that Anwar was far more well read and capable than the report suggests - but Naimah simply though otherwise, because she was reporting something she heard from Daim, and the report made by someone unclever about someone clever, it is bound to be inaccurate and misrepresentative of what the clever person truly said or meant, because the unclever person will unconciously translate what they hear into what they can understand.


In other words,If Daim was intelligent, he likely saw Anwar as intelligent too.

If Daim believed Anwar lacked intelligence, then Daim himself must not have been as wise as portrayed for believing that Anwar is intelligent enough to be made a capable finance minister with just a rudimentary guidance and training in a couple of months.

Either way, the story doesn’t hold together.

Anyway, for all intent and purpose however, I really don't think this question about whether Daim is wise and selfless or whether Anwar is well read or paranoid, will amount to “hill of beans in this crazy world we live in. ”


To me, all that this this conflicting narrative is telling me is that rather than towering geniuses and selfless great men, we might actually be governed by people who believe that they can make anything true, for as long as they control the narrative.


If this being the case, when two major figures in our corridors of power were to be in conflict with each other, what we can then expect is a battle of narrative, which will end only when one narrative triumphs over the other.


Because of that, I believe that Naimah's appearance on the Keluar Sekejap podcast is just one episode in the ongoing battle of narrative between the Daim and Anwar camp.


By the end of it,Either Anwar will be remembered as an ignoramus who does not read,

or Daim will be remembered as a corrupt politician who enriched himself at the nation’s expense.

Only time—and power—will decide which story survives.

***

I recall that when Pakatan won the 2018 election, and agreed-as-PM Mahathir appointed LGE as the Finance Minister although Mahathir striped the Finance Ministry of all the 'goodies' and placed them under a new Economic Ministry under his then-blue eyed boy, Azmin Ali. I also recall the CEP (Council of Eminent Persons), believed by most to be the "real" inner cabinet, and where Daim Zainuddin was the dominant member there.

Yes, I recall finally that Anwar Ibrahim, after he was pardoned by the King and left standing as the PM-in-waiting (he would NEVER be PM if left to Mahathir), asked LGE what Daim as a member of the CEP was 'advising' him (Lim).

Anwar then said (words to the effect) "I just wanted to make sure he was advising the right things", implying Anwar did NOT trust Daim even then.