INTERVIEW | For almost two decades PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has been viewed as a reluctant politician, standing in for her jailed husband Anwar Ibrahim.

This was perhaps best encapsulated in a May 2017 interview with Al-Jazeera, when Wan Azizah said she was willing to be a seat warmer for Anwar to become prime minister as he was more suited for the job.

However, over one year later and now the deputy prime minister, Wan Azizah spoke in a different tone during an interview with Malaysiakini.

"I was sworn in as the deputy prime minister, not a seat warmer," she said when met at the Women and Family Development Ministry in Putrajaya on Tuesday.

She was also adamant that she was not Anwar's puppet, although her husband was a sounding board in Pakatan Harapan, as were other PKR leaders and even Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin.

Such views of Wan Azizah were part of the reason that Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah did not pick her as menteri besar during the state's 2014 administrative crisis.

Others had also said that she could not take up such a role due to her being a woman.

To this point, Wan Azizah said she felt that her appointment as the country's first woman deputy prime minister had proven that women can aim for the stars...