Malaysia’s Rosmah Mansor, Singapore’s Ho Ching: BFFs? You must be kidding!
Satirical skit by actors Ivan Heng and Siti Khalijah Zainal underlines the fall from grace of the wife of Malaysia’s former leader Najib Razak – someone whom, just months ago, few would have dared to lampoon
Rosmah Mansor, the wife of the disgraced former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, and Ho Ching, the wife of the Singaporean leader Lee Hsien Loong, may no longer be so close in real life, but that has not stopped satirists in the Lion City from imagining them to be the best of friends.
Tickling Singaporeans’ funny bone on Sunday was a video clip circulating online of a skit by popular local actors Ivan Heng and Siti Khalijah Zainal assuming the role of the two political spouses.
The skit underlined once again Rosmah’s fall from grace since the May 9 general election that dethroned her husband.
Singaporean comedians were forced to issue official apologies for making fun of him, while Malaysian cartoonists were arrested for satirising the former leader and his wife.
There was no fear of such reprisals in the skit by Heng and Khalijah, who were performing at a fundraising dinner for the local theatre company Wild Rice.
Rosmah, who like her husband faces jail time if she is found guilty of money laundering, was the butt of jokes – with Khalijah mocking everything from the 66-year-old’s purported penchant for Botox and her love of Hermes Birkin bags costing over US$100,000 each.