COMMENT | Has Zafrul already hit the campaign trail?

COMMENT | Speculation is that Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz might stand for a parliamentary seat in Kuala Selangor under an Umno ticket, and recent events have put him in a pickle, eliciting responses from Umno leaders that he should focus on the economy.

In Malaysia, there is seldom smoke without fire, and his refusal to nix persistent rumours in the bud about his potential candidature as a member of parliament for Kuala Selangor just adds fuel to the fire.

His special, sudden interest in Kuala Selangor, including the announcement of Puncak Alam in the district as a station for the controversial East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) which connects Kota Bharu and Kuantan to Port Klang, has fanned the embers into a raging flame.

As if this was not bad enough, he went one step further to announce the “adoption” of the Kuala Selangor district by the Finance Ministry, a ridiculous scheme unheard of previously in a country where we have many strange machinations going on all the time.

The finance minister simply cannot display bias...