COMMENT | Lecturer and doctorate holder Kamarul Zaman Yusoff was surely modest when he posted a small part of his credentials in responding to critics of his lambasting of Selangor assembly speaker Hannah Yeoh.

In fact, building on his “lofty” American undergraduate achievements, he has returned to our ‘tanah air’ to become a scholar and academic.

His academic and intellectual track record can be discerned from his employer, Universiti Utara Malaysia's (UUM) website. He is listed as a senior lecturer and presently director of the Malaysian Institute of Political Analysis (Mapan) as well as attached to the Ghazali Shafie Graduate School of Government.

In the website, he has described his work and career in capital letters in the following way:

“I AM A POLITICAL SCIENTIST SPECIALIZING IN MALAYSIA POLITICS. MY DOCTORATE THESIS WAS ON PARTI ISLAM SE-MALAYSIA (PAS) MAKING ME AN EXPERT ON PAS. MY MAIN INTEREST IS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF MALAYSIAN OPPOSITION POLITICAL PARTIES. I HAVE RECEIVED GRANTS FROM UUM TO CONDUCT OPINION POLLS ON MALAYSIAN CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES AND WILL BE RECEIVING A FEW MORE FROM VARIOUS RESEARCH AGENCIES TO STUDY CURRENT MALAYSIAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. I HAVE BEEN FEATURED QUITE REGULARLY IN THE MALAYSIAN MEDIA COMMENTING ON MALAYSIAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT.”

Members of the public interested in his work can view his scholarly output at UUM's repository website.

From it we can see that he has been a contributor to the country's Malay print media - notably Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia during the past three years.

Even with his columns printed in the country's leading media, Kamarul, alas, does not appear to have been able to generate much of an audience for his political analysis.

According to the repository portal's records, his 10 most viewed articles have received a total of some 700 hits or an average of 70 hits per article. Perhaps now that he has emerged prominently in the public radar screen, he will be attracting more readers to his writing....