And then there is the possibility of taking another 25 at least with Hamzah Zainudin’s new Parti Wawasan Negara. Wawasan Negara already has 19 seats after its MPs broke away from Bersatu, which has the remaining six. Bersatu seems only to have a ghost of a chance of retaining them.

With PKR on the decline, some of their seats won with Malay support may be fodder for PAS or even Umno. Thus, it is likely that a PAS/Umno combination may have the most seats post GE16, as I explained in this article.

The Najib factor

That combination towards power seems more likely post the Johor polls. But if Umno thinks this is a licence to give Najib a “get out of jail card”, they are mistaken - I am not saying it, the numbers say so.

Umno’s support declined from 88 parliamentary seats in 2013 to 56 in 2018 when they lost power following the 1MDB scandal to 26 in 2022 when they kept harping on a pardon/house arrest for Najib.

How could a move to pardon or put under house arrest a person responsible for billions stolen from borrowed money in 1MDB’s coffers get public support anywhere? What is it that Umno wants to achieve? I am at a loss for answers.

Like Harapan, Umno also needs to pay attention to public sentiment over certain things. By now, it must be quite clear why an increasing number of people, barring non-Malays, are leaning towards PAS as their saviour. I don’t support it, but that’s the way the curry puff crumbles.

Bersama may make some headway in terms of a handful or two of MPs at the general election, but it is very difficult to predict their performance except to say they will take votes away from PKR and DAP, especially in urban areas.

It will take them at least until the next polls before they can become a threatening third force with their laudable and very reasonable Malaysian approach - the only one likely to give long-term benefit to all Malaysians.

“However, original handwritten birth records couldn’t be retrieved. Instead, official copies were issued based on secondary evidence,” he said, but what secondary evidence was adduced and from where?

What documents did it receive from these countries? If they had been birth certificates of the grandparents, NRD would have known none of them were born in Malaysia.

Side-stepping fundamental issue

But the Home Ministry’s statement side-stepped a fundamental issue. It said that the discretionary power over citizenship applications is subject to the provisions of the Federal Constitution and is exercised with due care, taking into account various factors, including public interest, national security, and the facts of each case.

The ministry said it would examine the findings and, together with relevant agencies, including the NRD, the Immigration Department, and the police, would identify appropriate areas for improvement.

These include aspects of strengthening standard operating procedures, documentation, coordination of work processes, as well as governance mechanisms that are aligned with best practices in the public service.

Really? Does the minister have the power to exempt the residency period and issue citizenship within 40 days instead of 10 years?

Why then the rebuke from EAIC? Does it also mean that the NRD did not coordinate with the police and the immigration authorities regarding the seven players? Then who did the security vetting as required by the law?

So, the inevitable question is: Did successive home ministers exercise a power they did not have under the Constitution?

Data debunks minister

Twentytwo13.com, a news portal that specialises in sports and related activities, compiled data based on information available in the public domain.

What is startling is that while Saifuddin continues the charade of “underwent a lawful and transparent process in full compliance with the Federal Constitution”, this table counters that claim.

None would have met the 10-year requirement, and it goes to show that the citizenships of these journeymen were fast-tracked, albeit illegally (or improperly - the polite terminology used by the EAIC).

Take the case of Briton Lee Tuck, who had been playing football in Malaysia since 2017.

On Merdeka Day, 2022, he announced on Instagram that he had become a naturalised Malaysian citizen. Six months later, he represented Malaysia in the Asean Football Championship, producing a Malaysian passport.

Where is he now? After that, he packed his bags and left for Halifax, England, midway through the season to focus on his real estate career, but still feels there’s money to be earned in Malaysia and suggested he would return.

“Currently, I am not playing for any club. Terengganu are a great club, and I have many fond memories. My daughters were born in Kuala Terengganu, so it’s a very special place for our family.

“Thus, I am ready to wear the Terengganu jersey if there is an offer from the team,” New Straits Times quoted him as saying on Feb 27, 2024.

Best of both worlds

Dual citizenship enables journeymen to enjoy the best of two worlds! No allegiance, no patriotism, no loyalty, no commitment. Period.

Again, the same question has to be repeated: Did Tuck and the others surrender the passports issued by the country of origin, and have they revoked their citizenship elsewhere because Malaysia does not recognise dual citizenship?

The time has come for everyone involved - the FAM, the Youth and Sports Ministry, the sports commissioners, the NRD, and especially the minister, to come clean by placing all cards on the table.

They cannot go on dishing out fictitious information or telling tall tales.

Now, the final and most important questions: Will the citizenships of the 23 players be revoked because they did not meet the residency period?

Secondly, have they all given up their citizenship from other countries and submitted their passports to the authorities as required?

Or are some of them having one leg in two countries and enjoying the best of both worlds?

This scandal is not just football. It is about accountability. Taxpayers have been misled by shifting narratives, half-truths, and contradictory announcements - many of which have now been exposed by the EAIC.

Each misleading claim has chipped away at trust in the institutions charged with safeguarding the Constitution.

Respect constitutional recognition

Citizenship is not a ministerial favour or a sporting shortcut. It is a constitutional recognition of belonging, and its integrity must be protected.

When approvals are rushed, rules bent, and oversight ignored, the cost is borne by ordinary Malaysians who expect honesty and transparency from their leaders.

The time has come for systemic accountability. Officials must stop hiding behind legalese and half-truths. They must disclose the full facts, accept responsibility, and commit to reforms that ensure citizenship is never again treated as a bargaining chip.

The taxpayers whose RM30 million went to the FAM for “boosting” the national team contributed indirectly to this fiasco, and we have a right to demand and get the truth.

Accountability is not optional - it is owed. Malaysians have been misled by half-truths, contradictory announcements, and evasive statements, all of which the EAIC has now exposed.

The institutions involved must face the public with honesty. Taxpayers deserve the truth, not tall tales. Integrity, transparency, and accountability were promised as the foundation of governance.

Delivering on those promises is the only way to restore trust. Although the process should have begun on day one when Fifa’s disciplinary committee made public its findings, it is still not too late.

The state Harapan chief, Aminolhuda Hasan, who opted not to contest in the Johor state polls, even stated that the coalition would “bury” or “kuburkan” BN in Johor for the second time.

This kind of attacking mindset, perhaps not suitable for a state election in a place like Johor, where voters value a more practical and policy-minded approach towards governing, would plague Harapan during the entire campaign.

This includes Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim calling the caretaker Johor menteri besar candidate (then), Onn Hafiz Ghazi, “kurang cerdik” or “not very clever” during one of his campaign speeches.

The delay in launching the Harapan manifesto, one week after BN had already launched theirs, and with no clear spokesperson to explain the manifesto to the public, allowed BN to label the Harapan manifesto as a “copy and paste” version of the BN manifesto.

The attempt, particularly by DAP, to say that a vote for BN is a vote for PAS, and to link the Johor campaign to the possible royal pardon (or house arrest) of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, looked increasingly desperate towards the last days of the campaign and obviously did not work.

In other words, the entire Harapan campaign in Johor was a “hot mess” compared to the disciplined campaign of BN, led by Onn, and ably backed up by Khairy Jamaluddin during his campaign for various BN candidates in the state.

(ii) Lack of coordination among Harapan parties

During the campaign, I was receiving images and posters via WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram of various ceramah being organised by Harapan across different constituencies in Johor.

What became clear to me was that each Harapan component party was running their own party campaign in Johor rather than running a coordinated campaign under the coalition’s banner.

For example, most of the ceramahs in seats contested by DAP featured mostly DAP speakers.

Even in seats like Jementah (part of the Segamat parliamentary constituency, with a PKR MP), Penggeram (part of the Batu Pahat parliamentary seat, with a PKR MP), Johor Jaya (part of the Pasir Gudang parliamentary seat, with a PKR MP), and Perling (part of the Pulai parliamentary seat, with an Amanah MP), I did not see much of the presence of the respective MPs for these constituencies in the ceramahs or the walkabouts organised by the DAP.

Perhaps they were busy campaigning for their respective parties in other constituencies, but the outcome was that Harapan was not properly coordinating its campaign.

(iii) Lack of self-awareness, especially among certain DAP leaders

In the interview on the Star Online, I said that BN had two poster boys in the Johor campaign.

Meanwhile, DAP deputy national chairperson Nga Kor Ming, in an exclusive interview with Oriental Daily, said that he would resign from the cabinet if BN won big in Johor and Najib was freed.

This not only allowed BN leaders, including Umno deputy president and foreign minister Mohamad Hasan, to urge Nga to resign even before polling day, but also made this a campaign theme for the Malay voters to come out and vote against Harapan and to vote for BN.

To a lesser extent, the remarks by Pua, before and during the Johor campaign, on the pig-rearing issue and later the LRT3 issue in Selangor, seemingly directed at the Selangor sultan, also provided ammunition to BN and PN cybertroopers to galvanise Malay voters to swing their support behind BN in Johor.

I do not have conclusive survey data to support this view, but one of the reasons why I think the Malay voter turnout in the Johor state election, estimated at 77 percent, was much higher than the Chinese voter turnout, estimated at 58 percent, was because the Malay voters were much more motivated to vote against the DAP and Harapan (and in support of the BN).

In comparison, Chinese voters did not seem to have a compelling reason to vote for Harapan.

I am making an educated guess that the anti-DAP backlash led to an anti-Harapan swing, which resulted in Malay support strongly returning to BN with an estimated 85 percent of Malay support in the Johor state election.

While the Chinese support for DAP and Harapan remained above 50 percent, estimated at a maximum of 80 percent overall (but much less in seats like Paloh and Yong Peng, which were won easily by the MCA incumbents), this is a reduction of at least 15 percent compared to the 95 percent support received by Harapan in the 2022 general election.

Sadly, many DAP leaders don’t realise that what they say in the ceramah in their own constituencies will affect the Malay sentiments in other constituencies, including those contested by PKR and Amanah, which are mixed and Malay-majority.

DAP may have defended six of the 10 seats it won in the 2022 state elections in Johor, but at what cost, especially to its coalition partners?

(iv) Losing the moral high ground

One of the incidents which were reported during the final days of the campaign was when two DAP campaigners, Ong Hui Xue (special officer to Deputy Education Minister Wong Kah Woh) and David Tiang (special officer to Housing and Local Government Minister Nga) were caught on video hanging a banner with the title “Bebas Najib” next to the billboard of Li Tiang Soon (or “Ah Soon”), the BN-MCA candidate for Yong Peng.

What really shocked me was that Wong not only defended the two DAP campaigners for putting up the banner during a campaign speech in Yong Peng, but they were even invited on stage by Ipoh Timur MP Howard Lee, and were then applauded and congratulated by the crowd of supporters!

The DAP I joined back in 2012 would have criticised BN for hanging banners demonising party elder Lim Kit Siang for being anti-Islam during election time, for example, and would have lambasted any BN candidate for asking their campaigners who hung such banners to go on stage to be applauded and congratulated!

To me, this was the moment when the DAP lost any moral high ground that it may have had, including on the 1MDB issue.

And this is after the revelation by DAP’s former Skudai assemblyperson, Marina Ibrahim, that a senior DAP leader who had been campaigning hard against Najib on the 1MBD issue also told her to expect the former prime minister to be pardoned eventually, in a very matter-of-fact way.

(v) Loss of trust towards Harapan among Indian voters

I do not have access to the detailed ballot stream results for Johor, which would reveal more distinct voting patterns among the Indian community, but the anecdote by former Klang MP Charles Santiago that Indian voters are “angry, not disappointed” with Harapan when meeting Indian community leaders and voters is telling.

The fact that the DAP lost badly in Paloh, a seat with 15 percent Indian voters, and lost Perling, a previously safe seat with 13 percent Indian voters, should be an indication that Indian voters have defected from Harapan in larger numbers in Johor.

This is a reflection of a much larger national trend where there is no clear narrative from Harapan on its deliverables to the Indian community, despite numerous declarations and campaign manifesto promises in the past.

What applies at the national level and what doesn’t

Of course, there are some trends in Johor that don’t apply to national sentiment and to other states. This is what some Harapan and DAP leaders have and will continue to say.

Amanah communications director Khalid Samad, after the Johor results were announced, said that Harapan still has the advantage at the federal level because Anwar is a better prime minister candidate than whoever BN has to offer.

While this may be the case if we take the latest Merdeka Center polls as an indication, would Harapan be confident of retaining the same number of seats which it won in GE15 (Harapan won 82 parliament seats in 2022) if a general election were to be triggered before the end of 2026?

Yes, BN doesn’t have Onn as a poster boy in states other than Johor, but does Harapan have someone close to the stature and popularity of Khairy at the national level, who has higher approval ratings among Malay respondents than Anwar in the recent Merdeka Center survey?

While Khairy may not be BN’s candidate for prime minister, he has shown in Johor that he can be a very effective campaigner, perhaps more effective than Anwar himself.

Even if we restrict BN’s popularity to Johor, a translation of the state election to the parliamentary seats shows that BN would go from winning nine seats in GE15 to winning 25 out of 26 parliamentary seats in Johor, including wresting 14 out of the 15 Harapan seats, leaving the latter with only Bakri.

Of course, Harapan leaders can say that they would fare better in a general election compared to a state election, but this remains to be seen.

Other factors could come into play in a general election that would continue to disadvantage Harapan, including lower turnout rates among the coalition’s supporters.

Implications for the N Sembilan polls

BN should not be overconfident and expect the same kind of result in the upcoming Negeri Sembilan state election.

They do not have the same kinds of advantages, such as having a popular menteri besar candidate like Onn.

It is also not the incumbent state government, and Harapan, as the incumbent, should be able to run a more coherent and disciplined campaign.

What may continue to apply in Negeri Sembilan is the loss of confidence and support among Malay voters towards Harapan, as well as continued implicit and explicit support for BN by PAS.

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READ MORE: COMMENT | Hot Negeri Sembilan polls

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It is too early to say whether this will be sufficient for BN to retake Negeri Sembilan, but what is clear is that another wake-up call has been issued to Harapan and particularly to the DAP.

I am not confident that DAP leaders have woken up yet.

So here are 12 ways Harapan can save itself.

1) Do serious reforms

Better late than never. Even if they lose the next election, at least they’ll go down as heroes. When BN or PN inevitably screw up, Harapan will have some credibility to regain power.

2) Cheap medical insurance

Control private hospitals’ profits, or create a good, affordable Madani health insurance to win back middle-class voters. Waiving the RM1 ATM fee is just not good enough.

3) Racial harmony law 

Pass this to stop provocations by the likes of Umno Youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh and gang. This has been talked about since 2023, but it was the usual NATO (No Action, Talk Only) from Anwar.

4) Anwar should step down

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s brand is in tatters, so it’s best that he steps down - make him minister mentor to save some dignity.

If only Rafizi Ramli were still in PKR to take over. Meanwhile, Anwar’s daughter and PKR deputy president, Nurul Izzah, is clueless and also part of her daddy’s damaged brand.

Another senior PKR leader, Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari, has also been plagued by scandals.

The least tainted PKR Malay leader is Negeri Sembilan Menteri Besar Aminuddin Harun. If Anwar lets him lead, it would be like Dr Mahathir Mohamad passing power to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as prime minister because he was seen as “Mr Clean”.

Pak Lah led BN to its greatest victory in 2004 because he promised reforms (but failed).

5) Provide jobs via e-tuk-tuks

Stop protecting Grab’s e-hailing profits. Allow electric tuk-tuk (beca) e-hailing as a more affordable option for poorer people to access LRT stations, like in China.

Many B40 folks, especially Malays, can become owner-drivers. Win votes by giving jobs, just as food delivery does.

Safety will be monitored by the e-hailing apps via passenger ratings and complaints.

6) Orange jumpsuit for Najib

Make former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and other convicted VIPs wear the orange jumpsuit when in court.

This is a powerful symbol that Harapan is serious about battling corruption. There’s no need to give face to Umno anymore after their betrayal in Johor.

7) Local council elections

Start with Malay cities like Kota Baru, Kuantan, and Shah Alam to reduce racial protests. Next, Kuala Lumpur, which is half Malay and half non-Malay.

Then maybe the Selangor state capital of Shah Alam (under a Harapan-appointed city council, mind you) will build pedestrian sidewalks to LRT3 stations without waiting for a viral video to shame it into last-minute action.

8) Redraw seats fairly

One urban vote should equal one rural vote. Stop electoral manipulation and gerrymandering.

Many suburban seats like Bangi, Gombak, and Selayang in Selangor have huge Malay-majority populations but can only choose one MP. Meanwhile, the same number of rural voters can choose six MPs!

Don’t punish urban voters, said Suhaizan Kaiat, the Johor Amanah deputy president. It’s unfair to make urban votes less valuable than those in much smaller rural seats.

This will benefit Harapan, so what are they waiting for? Umno’s approval? Will Anwar wake up and prove he’s “cukup jantan” or man enough to do this?

9) Fight corruption

Clean up the MACC, then make it answer to Parliament, not the prime minister. Set up an Ombudsman system comprising respected retired judges with powers to probe anyone.

Pass an unexplained wealth law, as former Klang MP Charles Santiago proposed.

So if a civil servant earning RM7,000 monthly has three big bungalows and five luxury cars, they can be quickly seized if they can’t explain how they paid for them. No need for forever court cases like Najib.

10) Political funding law

Use this to control the disease of “political donations” buying over leaders and policies. Umno also promised this in their 2022 manifesto, so there are no excuses.

11) Recognise UEC

Penang, Selangor, Sabah, and Sarawak already do. What is Anwar waiting for? The nod from the DNAA guy (Umno president and deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi)?

12) Should DAP leave?

If no serious reforms are started soon, DAP should leave Putrajaya before they drown with the sinking Anwar ship.

Return to the old fiery DAP as an “opposition from within Madani”, just as MCA and Akmal have been doing.

Conclusion 

Harapan has been spiralling down since the Sabah elections, and now Johor.

But it’s still possible to pull the plane up from the nosedive if Harapan takes decisive emergency action.

And who could forget when the former police chief of Terengganu claimed that Malays do not participate in gangs because of their culture and religion?

What we have to understand is that any attempt at oversight necessarily means confronting the racism and bigotry that permeate these institutions.

Lawyer Rajesh Nagarajan, representing the families of the executed citizens in Durian Tunggal, said, “This is murder”.

Gobind Singh Deo said, “The police do not reclassify cases, especially to serious capital offences such as homicide, unless there is a solid evidential basis to do so.”

So the question is, what is taking so long? Maybe this has something to do with what a former BN secretary-general said about who is in the attorney-general hot seat:

“What I said about the attorney-general (is) I am stating facts on the ground - that (there is) fear (among) the Malays that probably, if the AG is not a bumi or Malay, then there is a fear of bias.

A more dangerous Malaysia

This is about systemic dysfunction and the collusion between the political class and a different kind of criminal enterprise.

I will end this piece with this quote from Lawyers for Liberty when the Court of Appeal reaffirmed the acquittal of now-deceased corporal Jenain Subi:

“The courts’ support for trigger-happy police does not make Malaysia any safer. In fact, it will make Malaysia a more dangerous place, because any person who flees from the police is now liable to be shot, and if he or she is wrongly killed, it is now open for the police to claim mistake or accidental death.”

To this day, nobody from the state security apparatus has explained the machete which was found in the car that Aminulrasyid Amzah had taken for a joyride, which resulted in his death.

It also implies that whatever gains people expected from a cleaner government have failed to materialise in ways they can feel in their daily lives.

READ MORE: Azalina: Govt cannot disclose Azam Baki's shareholdings

This is a telling admission. It suggests that, for a segment of voters, corruption is not judged in the abstract but weighed against tangible outcomes such as jobs, income, and opportunity.

If a leader seen as corrupt is remembered as someone who delivered on that front, while a government elected on a reform platform is seen as falling short economically, then the anti-corruption argument alone loses its persuasive power.

READ MORE: Najib's 1MDB plunder made Attila the Hun look like a choirboy – judge

Disillusionment of this kind rarely stays confined to one community; it tends to be a warning sign of a broader erosion of trust that could shape voting behaviour well beyond the immediate group where it first takes root.

The lesson from Johor is perhaps uncomfortable for all sides. Voters may forgive old mistakes, but they are far less forgiving when they feel ignored.

The next litmus test in this? Negeri Sembilan state polls. All the best, Harapan.

Yiswaree Palansamy is a member of the Malaysiakini team.

Supporters became angry, weakening Harapan. Then a well-fed reptile saw the chance to turn around and bite Anwar in Johor.

As the Malays say, “padan muka” or "serves you right".

Bersama underdogs

This gives space for Parti Bersama Malaysia to capture “disillusioned voters”.

Not only from those exasperated with Harapan's failures, but also from those disenchanted with the cynical games of both PAS and Umno.

Bersama has succeeded in fielding 15 candidates in Johor, barely a month after being taken over by two former PKR leaders.

The candidates were not chosen for political bootlicking, but based on merit as self-made professionals, businesspeople who want real change.

The team is running on a shoestring budget, using unpaid volunteers and a rented truck as a mobile campaign platform.

This is because they refuse to take “political donations” from tycoons, which will come with demands for favours later.

“How are big campaign events of other parties being funded?” asked Bersama leader Rafizi Ramli in a ceramah.

In contrast, the party will reveal how it gets its funding and how it's spent, starting with the Johor election.

Rotan naughty kids

But why vote for Bersama when it only has modest aims to be a vocal opposition in Johor?

Because even if Harapan wins big in Johor, its power is limited as the palace has the final say.

As former Umno leader Puad Zarkashi claimed, “Johor Umno is controlled by the palace in making decisions.”

Indeed, even though Umno won a landslide victory of 40 of 56 seats in the last state election, the party's choice of menteri besar was blocked by the palace.

A Harapan win will only give sinking Anwar another breath of air, and lull him into thinking “all is fine, don't change things.”

It's better to choose Bersama as a risk-free “protest vote” to wake up Harapan.

Forget about the Islamic state fearmongering, as the palace is moderate and PAS is only contesting 11 seats anyway.

A strong protest vote against Harapan is like giving a firm whack of the rotan on a naughty boy's backside to make him change for the better.

Don't worry, Harapan will still be there. But I hope that after a rude “wake-up call” in Johor, the coalition will do real radical reforms in its last year of power.

Then voters can decide if a new and improved “Harapan Baru” is still worth supporting.

Monitoring these programmes does not mean there would automatically be transparency. This is because many of these programmes are part of the gravy train driven by bureaucrats, political operatives, and their various proxies.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim also recently lamented the abuse of bumiputera loans, which tells rational Malaysians everything we need to know about the average majority of rakyat who are screwed over by the system, which has nothing to do with non-Malay political operatives.

And let us be very clear, not only did the old maverick threaten to fire Lim a couple of times, but he also got into a public spat with Pua, labelling him (in a roundabout way) as arrogant.

The response from these two men demonstrates that there were tensions between the crony class and public servants who believed it was their job to safeguard the public interest.

The plutocratic class

Meanwhile, PKR rabble rouser Hassan Abdul Karim has said that not only has there been a return of the crony class, but now we have the Mahakaya.

You can discover the types of Remora capitalists (as I refer to them) in Hassan’s warning, but pay attention to the third type: “These people seem to enjoy immunity and cannot be touched due to the 3R ban.”

The Pasir Gudang MP also noted their business dealings, even though this was expressly forbidden by the Federal Constitution.

And Mahathir did have his scraps with this type of class back in the day. As reported by The Independent, “In the meantime, the government is waging all-out war on the rulers.”

“Civil servants have been told to seek the prime minister’s permission before seeing the king; state governments are under orders to refuse business favours to their rulers.

“Religious teachers have been encouraged to comment on the un-Islamic behaviour of the supposed guardians of Islam.”

I want to be very clear. I am not saying that the party Lim and Pua represent is not linked in any way to the plutocratic class.

Indeed, it would be disingenuous to make that claim. It is no accident that the DAP got its moniker “Development Action Party”.

But the reality is that, from public records and their responses, it is evident that both men operating under the system they were under chose to safeguard public interests, or at the very least attempted to do so.

We can have a discussion about the numbers behind these kinds of projects, but to further a specific type of narrative by singling out these two is beyond the pale.

Najib gets his reputation laundered while Lim and Pua get smeared as people who do not have the interests of the rakyat at heart.

By not responding to these types of criticisms, the only thing the DAP is doing is normalising narratives that will damage its credibility with its base.

This is what is rotten about Madani.

With the LRT3, the disagreement is not really about whether it should exist. It does exist and the disagreement is about what certain decisions mean.

One view says that reducing scope means the project was weakened. Another view says that reducing scope means costs were brought under control.

Both views sound reasonable, but they lead to very different conclusions about responsibility.

Not a simple story

Big infrastructure projects are not one decision, but many decisions over many years, so we should not treat them as one simple story.

There are different stages: approval, construction, adjustment and completion. Each stage involves different people. Each has different pressures. Thus, each stage should be judged differently.

The most important question is not who approved the project, or who completed it, or who inherited it.

The most important question is this: When costs started rising, were decisions made early enough to prevent bigger financial damage later? Because in public finance, the biggest risk is not change, but waiting too long to change.

No one likes changes in big projects. They are hugely controversial and often criticised; but if no changes are made when costs rise, the problem can worsen.

Regrettably, the public pays for it later; through higher debt, higher taxes, or when other services are reduced.

That is the real trade-off.

The LRT3 line is now complete and that is good. However, completion should not stop questions.

We still need to ask how decisions were made along the way. Not to blame individuals for political reasons, but to understand whether public money is being managed properly.

In the end, fiscal discipline is not about political narratives or competing claims of credit.

It is about whether difficult decisions are made early enough to prevent problems from becoming crises, or whether political narratives later turn responsibility into blame.