Datin Seri Rosmah feeling in the pink

Posted on Aug 5, 2009 in Social Media | 9 comments

So, the big news of the day was of course the launching of the very pink website of our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.

Now, there has been naturally some criticism. Among those I heard are:

1. It’s too pink. Okay lah, I don’t really like the colour either but to be fair to her, you can choose your colour scheme (see the boxes at the top with different colours?). I haven’t been able to test it though. I just tried to access the site and it’s down.

2.It’s too slow. Yes, it is.

3.It is on a Government site. Well, it’s not THAT uncommon.

4. There were also some criticism which were more personal but I won’t get into all that.

Now, my first reaction was: What? She has a whole micro-site dedicated to her? Wah, Malaysia memang boleh. Even Michelle Obama only has a one pager (all the links lead to other White House related pages). While thinking of this, I thought I would check out the other wives of world leaders and see if they have their own site.

Of course, the first I looked for was Michelle Obama (no need to tell you folks who she is, do I?). Hers is simple, just a biodata (a bit long but then again, she’s got quite an illustrious career) and also on official website – the White House’s that is. But that was it. Rosmah 1. Michelle 0.

Then next I tried for the wife of Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Sarah Brown. Nada. Nothing. Most I found was her Wikipedia page (unless I missed it somewhere). Rosmah by a mile!

Since I lived in Australia for a couple of years, I thought it’s be interesting to find the wife of Kevin Rudd (Prime Minister of Australia). Her name is Therese Rein and she, like Michelle Obama, also has an official page on the Prime Minister’s Office site. But her biodata is even shorter than Michelle’s but she has a list of her interests … in bullet form! Rosmah 1 – Therese 1/4 (for the bullet points!).

Then I wanted to look back at Asia, so I checked for Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and found, well nothing. I tried PRC President Hu Jintao’s wife Liu Yingqing and also nada. Or maybe I couldn’t find it because it was in Chinese. But since this is my blog, I’ll say, Rosmah 2!

Then I thought how could I miss the ultimate First Lady? Nicolas Sarkozy’s superstar wife Carla Bruni (or Bruni-Sarkozy). And this one was the best. She doesn’t have an official site on Nicolas’ site (actually, it’s in French so I couldn’t find anything, not even an English version button).

What I did find was this site – her personal website! It’s not pink but it’s very nice. I think she wins.

But since I’m such a patriotic Malaysian, I’ll all for Datin Seri’s site. Colour aside, it’s nice to know that she’s at least embracing new media technologies. Let’s hope it’s more interesting than her husband’s Tweets though!

1.27am Malaysian time (+8 GMT)