COMMENT PAS deputy president Mohamed Sabu likes, with good reason, to think himself a politician of the ordinary Malaysian - a veritable Mat Public, if you like.

His popularity derives from this ordinariness and his confidence in its adequacy to meet the challenges that accrue to his role as aspirant for the mantle of national governance.

The moniker, Mat Sabu - by which he is popularly called - promotes this image of him as a politician of the common man.

But 'ordinariness' does not mean he is mundane which could beguile one into thinking that Sabu is a merely a politician of likeable personality and limited range.

His oratorical skills, for which he is highly regarded by his throng of supporters transcending racial lines, are suited for the stump, but his content is apt to be forgotten though not his delivery which is valued for its comic touches and the timing of its barbs...