Politicians as diplomats less harmful than politicians in GLCs, says Nazri
Umno’s Nazri Aziz says a rule imposed by the previous Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to bar politicians from being posted overseas as ambassadors was a distraction from the more pressing need to address the culture of putting politicians in charge of government-linked companies.
(MalaysiaNow) – The vocal Umno MP said appointing politicians to diplomatic posts does no harm to the country unlike giving them GLC positions, adding however that the question of non-diplomatic ambassadors had been made into an issue as PH was “playing to the gallery”.
“But you know, PH was playing to the gallery. So this became a low hanging fruit, and they came up with a charter that diplomats should not be chosen from among MPs,” Nazri told MalaysiaNow’s talk show programme Talk, Now.
Last week, MalaysiaNow quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Nazri, the Padang Rengas MP who served under three prime ministers during the Barisan Nasional era, could be given an ambassador’s job in a European capital.
