THE sacking of Tajuddin Abdul Rahman as chairman of Prasarana Malaysia Bhd on Wednesday was a welcome relief.

Since his appointment last year, the Pasir Salak MP had been courting controversies due to his publicly known run-ins with his own senior management.

It was finally his unprofessional conduct in the aftermath of the LRT rail mishap that saw Tajuddin’s swift exit from the Prasarana board.

As we cheer the departure of the boorish politician from a plush job indirectly funded by taxpayers, we wonder how many more Tajuddins are there in our midst?

For the longest time, GLC political appointees like Tajuddin project themselves as undertaking a “national service” for the people.

In truth, such appointments are often treated as stepping stones for personal political career advancements, if not key to a war chest.

The same applies not just to those who hold top GLC or statutory board posts, but many other sweet-talking operatives, whose ultimate aim is to climb up the political ladder.

Tajuddin may be easy to spot, hence called out, due to his tactless demeanour.

Yet, what about those who share Tajuddin’s traits but are more polished or even backed by a team of spin doctors to project a predetermined public persona?

Take former prime minister Najib Razak. He has been riding high on his Bossku phenomenon, pressing on all the right buttons purportedly speaking up for the people, positioning himself to become prime minister again.

Of late, one of his pet topics is the government’s ballooning public debts.

Riding on his stature as former finance minister, he expressed “concerns” over the supposed RM116 billion debts incurred by the government and whether the country could afford to service the loans.

However, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said the national debt as of May was only RM99.3 billion, and not as alleged by Najib.

The latter may have resorted to massaging some numbers. In fact, some RM42.3 billion of the national debt was attributed to 1MDB, SRC and Strategic Energy Resources Sdn Bhd (SSER).

In other words, Najib, who had accused the government of irresponsible borrowings, had during his administration contributed the largest chunk of the current national debts, including government guarantees.

In total, the government’s legacy debts stood at around RM40 billion, of which RM15.5 billion had been paid, according to Zafrul’s social media post.

The outstanding loan of RM24.5 billion alone is enough for the government to buy Covid-19 vaccines between seven to eight times over.

Just as Tajuddin’s “caring for commuters and the public” persona was betrayed by his unprofessional conduct during and after Tuesday’s media conference, Najib’s political posturing about national issues such as the country’s debts did not jive with his track record.

Put another way, Najib is not that different from Tajuddin, although the former is more refined and polished, but no less deceptive and requires more effort to see through the duplicity and word play.

There is an abundance of such characters in our political theatre, some more easy to spot than others.

It is our duty as voters to stay vigilant against sweet promises and pleasing rhetoric and match them against the politicians’ track record, regardless of from which side of the divide they originate.

It is when we let our guard down that we end up with leaders whom we thought are the light at the end of the tunnel, when they are in fact that of an oncoming train on a deadly collision course that would derail our nation-building efforts. – May 29, 2021.

* Leonard Tay reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.