WITH A SERENE FACE, hair covered by an Islamic-style scarf and her role as the wife of jailed former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, Wan Azizah Ismail sometimes appears almost saint-like.
When on the electoral hustings as leader of an opposition party dedicated to Anwar's plight, elderly Chinese women are said to remark on what they view as her similarity to Kwan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy.
It's not just a covered head, flowing, robe-like dresses and a calm aura which cause some to liken her to the Chinese deity. They are united by mercy: but while the goddess is reputed to provide bounty to the faithful, Dr Azizah is pleading for mercy for her husband.
Every day for the past three years she has carried out her duties as the leader of Keadilan (the National Justice Party), formed from the mass movement which had opposed Anwar's prosecution and jailing on corruption and sodomy charges, focused on the goal of securing Anwar's release from a jail sentence of 15 years.
'My presence always will remind people of my husband,' the eye doctor-turned-politician told the Sunday Morning Post, sitting in the dining room of the couple's large house in a leafy and expensive Kuala Lumpur suburb.
The sounds of a young family playing and moving around the house at night drift into the room, a poignant reminder of six children - the oldest studying at university and the youngest a primary school pupil - who can only visit their father in jail once a week.
It was in 1998, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis which had brought political tensions to the surface and as street protesters called for reformasi (reform), that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad sacked his deputy and branded him a homosexual after a rift developed between the long-term leader and his former protege.