In the first Monday (14 May) after GE14, looks like many Human Resources departments will be kept busy! The working week has officially started and some people have decided to hand in their resignation.
One such person is political analyst Kamarul Zaman Yusoff who resigned as the director of Universiti Utara Malaysia’s (UUM) Institute for Malaysian Political Analysis (Mapan). Don’t remember him? He was the guy who became viral after holding a forum entitled, “Is Tun M too old to be PM?” with a few other panelists.
The Sinar Harian forum at the Karangkraf Complex in Shah Alam in March was gatecrashed by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself and he sat in the front row while giving Kamarul a “death stare”. In fact, PM Mahathir had tweeted that he was at the forum itself while posting a photo of him sitting in the front row.
Soon after this, Kamarul became an internet sensation with netizens commenting that he had “wet himself” when PM Mahathir showed up. Others said that his “balls shrunk” as well and it appeared that he instantly softened his stance when PM Mahathir was sitting in front of him.
Now, Kamarul has said that he decided to resign as strangers were recognising him as the person who “wet himself” everywhere he went, Malaysiakini reported. He added, “I cannot deny that wherever I go, unknown people who recognise me as the academic who (supposedly) wet himself in front of Mahathir during a Sinar Harian forum on March 22 will tick me off.”
He said that his name was linked to many critical writings about Pakatan Harapan, which caused him to receive many enquiries about criticising PM Mahathir. The people in UUM had also started to ask him questions. “(In light of this), to facilitate all quarters, I hereby voluntarily resign my position as the Mapan director of UUM, effective May 14, which is the first working day after the 14th general election,” he said.
“I would like to apologise openly to everyone at UUM who were not comfortable because they think my critical actions against Mahathir and Harapan had affected the university’s reputation. These are all my personal views,” he said.
When asked, he said that he was not siding with Datuk Sri Najib Razak as he had previously criticised the former Barisan Nasional government as well.
All the best in your future undertakings!
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