PKR president-elect Anwar Ibrahim today jokingly offered his services as a consultant to anyone who wants to know about life in prison.

The offer also stands for certain VIPs facing trial, he said, drawing laughter from the audience at a celebrity chef programme for women as he campaigned in the Port Dickson parliamentary by-election.

The Pakatan Harapan candidate in the by-election said life in jail was difficult but he had served time patiently until his release.

He said he was well looked after in jail by the prison staff and some of them had expressed their sympathy for him.

“The prison staff expressed sympathy and supported PKR on the quiet,” he said.

Anwar had been in jail for almost nine years, from 1998 to 2004 and from 2015 to May this year.

The Port Dickson by-election is a seven-cornered contest among Anwar, Lt Col (Rtd) Mohd Nazari Mokhtar of PAS and five independent candidates, among them former Negeri Sembilan menteri besar Mohd Isa Abdul Samad and Anwar’s former personal aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

The seat was vacated by Danyal Balagopal Abdullah of PKR on Sept 12, to enable Anwar to contest the by-election and become an MP.

In the 14th general election on May 9, Danyal, 68, had won the seat with a majority of 17,710 votes, beating VS Mogan of BN and Mahfuz Roslan of PAS.

The Port Dickson constituency has 75,770 registered voters, 43 percent of whom are Malay, 33 percent Chinese, 22 percent Indian and two percent others.

Polling is on Saturday.

-- Bernama