RPK admits asking NST for interview in S'pore
Self-exiled blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has denied claims that he had “consented” to an interview request from New Straits Times , and instead clarified that it was he who had approached the Umno-linked newspaper.
Self-exiled blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has denied claims that he had “consented” to an interview request from New Straits Times, and instead clarified that it was he who had approached the Umno-linked newspaper.
“First of all, I did not ‘consent’ to the interview. Consent is hardly the right word to use when it was I who asked to be interviewed.
“Yes, they did not approach me. I approached the NST,” he said in a blog posting yesterday. 
In the article titled Who has lost the plot, Raja Petra (right) addressed criticisms from his former supporters who had chasitised him for speaking to NST and Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia.
Raja Petra reminded his audience that he had once participated in a campaign to boycott NST and Utusan in 2000 and had once banned mainstream newspapers from covering a PKR convention.
However, Raja Petra said there was no need for him to explain this inconsistency, stressing that he was unpredictable and unconventional in his ways.
And should he explain his rationale, this would unveil his true strategy.
He stressed that the only ones who needed to know what was going on in his mind were his team and those in his circle.
“Anyway, who are you that I need to confide everything I do to?” asked Raja Petra of his critics.
In an email interview with Malaysiakini last week, Raja Petra did not answer when asked who organised his interviewwith NST and Utusan in Singapore.
‘I met Umno people to make Bersih a success’
Raja Petra said that he answers neither to BN nor Pakatan Rakyat, stressing that his unconventional ways, which includes collaborating with his one-time enemy Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had borne fruit.
He also claimed that he had employed his unconventional ways to make the first Bersih rally in November 2007, which saw tens of thousands of Malaysians taking to the streets to demand for electoral reform, a success.
Raja Petra said he had personally approached many “key Umno people” in order to secure funds for Bersih T-shirts and caps to be supplied to protesters.
“Do you know I had many meetings with Umno people on how to make the Bersih march a success?” he asked.
He then name-dropped former Selangor DAP publicity chief Ronnie Liu (left) as a witness to this.
"Of course, my actions are puzzling to many, especially when I do not confide in them and they have to second-guess my actions. Well, that is their problem, not mine,” said Raja Petra.
