RENOWNED political commentator Prof James Chin has taken a pot shot at former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin (KJ) for criticising PKR over “UMNO-BN (Barisan Nasional) mistakes” when he himself was part of the UMNO leadership “during the mistakes”.

Having projected himself “as a progressive ever since he came back from London”, the professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania is dumbfounded as to why the former UMNO Youth leader did not introduce “progressive changes” to UMNO prior to his sacking for alleged treacherous conduct in January this year.

“Remember that he served as a minister under (now incarcerated former premier Datuk Seri) Najib Razak (Mr 1MDB) and kept quiet about 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Bhd) when he was in power,” recalled Chin in a recent tweet on X (formerly Twitter).

“So back to my question: what sort of “progressive” is KJ? Or is everyone equating his fluent English with being progressive? Who knows? Malaysians are gullible people. He may be our future PM!”

For context, Khairy had in his latest Keluar Sekejap podcast episode hit out at the unity government for failing to keep up to its promises and using poor justifications for its shortcomings.

“They (Pakatan Harapan) have yet to deliver on the separation of powers between the Prime Minister and Finance Minister and the Sedition Act is still being used for political purposes when it was previously promised that it would only be used for statements against the royalty,” commented Khairy when addressing the unity government’s first anniversary in power.

“They (PH) give excuses like they have to work with UMNO-BN but good governance should go beyond parties or coalitions. They (PH) can’t even admit their weaknesses. What they used to attack Najib with is suddenly all right for Anwar to do likewise now.”

To rub salt on the wound, the son-in-law of fifth premier Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who was ‘notorious’ for his ‘fourth floor boy antic’ prior to being absorbed into Najib’s cabinet as youth and sports minister (May 2013-May 2018), further claimed that the unity government and its supporters are suffering from a “thin skin” syndrome by being easily offended by criticism.

All in all, Chin who is also a senior fellow and the director of governance studies at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia at Sunway University made the following observation on the former Rembau MP who was ‘parachuted’ to contest in Sungai Buloh during last year’s 15^th General Election and subsequently lost his MP-ship.

“Yet he stayed in UMNO (the original Ketuanan Melayu party) and refused to move to any other party. Even after his UMNO sacking, he refused to join any other party … so can we say his commitment to UMNO (and Ketuanan Melayu) is deep?” - Nov 30, 2023

https://focusmalaysia.my/prof-james-chin-wonders-if-kj-is-being-hypercritical-by-slamming-pkr-for-umno-bn-mistakes/