-Terrance Netto, Malaysiakini June 19, 2013 . (Reproduced)

COMMENT Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak must have been desperate for a deal with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

That can be inferred from the type of deal Najib offered Anwar – who declined to personally meet with the Malaysian PM – through intermediary Jusuf Kalla, the former Indonesian vice-president who is friends with both Najib and Anwar

Najib pressed an offer of reconciliation that apparently entailed a national unity government with a deputy prime minister’s role for Anwar and four ministerial posts for PKR leaders. Anwar was said to have rejected the offer.

According to sources, Najib had tried to meet with Anwar in Jakarta all of Saturday but Anwar studiously avoided the PM.

Whereas Najib had the edge over Anwar on how a pre-polls pact between the two had panned out, the latter regained the initiative in supposedly reconciliatory gambits initiated by Najib in Jakarta to which both leaders had repaired over the weekend.

Last Friday, Anwar had flown to Bali to meet Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who a week after the May 5 polls in Malaysia, had requested that the Pakatan leader visit Jakarta for discussions.

Anwar told Bambang (left) he could only meet with the Indonesian president after a pre-planned visit to the United States.

That visit over, Anwar flew to Bali last Friday where he met Bambang who gave vent to his views on the May 5 general election.

According to a source close to Anwar who met with the Pakatan leader on Monday, Bambang said he had expected a bit of fraud to taint Malaysia’s Election 2013, as in most such affairs throughout the world, but the extent of the cheating that took place in GE13 had appalled the Indonesian leader.

The source, a former senior PKR leader, said the Indonesian president told Anwar he was deeply disappointed by what had happened.

No meeting in Jakarta

After his discussions with Anwar that continued on Saturday, Bambang lent Anwar the use of his presidential jet to fly to Jakarta where Anwar was scheduled to meet former Indonesian VP Jusuf at the latter’s residence at 3pm the same day.

Najib was waiting to meet Anwar whom the Malaysian PM had expected to arrive in Jakarta from Bali through the Halim Perdana international airport but the presidential jet landed at another airport in the Indonesian capital.

Unable to meet with Anwar at Halim Perdana, Najib bided his time with a round of golf with Jusuf (right) whose good offices the PM had sought in arranging a meeting with Anwar.

In conversation with Jusuf over golf and later at Jusuf’s home in Jakarta where Najib waited for Anwar to show up, the PKR source said Najib sold Jusuf on the idea of Anwar as a leader of impressive calibre.

When Anwar declined to show up at Jusuf’s residence for the scheduled meeting because he wanted to avoid Najib, the former Indonesian veep came to Anwar’s hotel in Jakarta to convey Najib’s proffer of posts for him and his PKR cohort.

But Anwar declined to bite the bait and flew out of Jakarta.

At a PKR political bureau meeting last night, Anwar tabled Najib’s proffer for discussion, only to find his rejection of it affirmed by the party.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.