COMMENT Has Ibrahim Ali been a stalking horse for Umno that the party won't renounce for reasons of strategic manoeuvre, or is he an unrepresentative outlier of merely nuisance value?

That this moving force behind the Malay right-wing group, Perkasa, was a convenient vent for Dr Mahathir Mohamad to air views that the former prime minister would consider inappropriate to own up to in public has been evident for a long time.

That Ibrahim was also a stalking horse for the hardliners of Umno said to be allied to deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin was also inferred for some time.

There was doubt, however, as to whether the Pasir Mas MP was also channeling for BN chief Najib Abdul Razak, putative Umno reformer and liberal whose measures in that mode are believed to have been opposed by Umno hardliners and have drawn flak from Perkasa.

Those doubts would be removed when and if Ibrahim's name appears on the Umno list of candidates for Parliament...