Few bold moves in new Malaysian
cabinet By Anil Netto
PENANG,
Malaysia - Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, fresh from a
thumping victory in the general election of March 21,
announced his much-anticipated new cabinet lineup on
Saturday.
Abdullah had raised expectations of a
drastic shakeout of the cabinet after stirring
anti-corruption rhetoric during the election campaign
this month. He had also promised to improve the civil
service, reduce poverty and turn agriculture into a key
sector of growth.
But the cabinet list appeared
to be an anticlimax, with some of the old guard from the
Mahathir Mohamad era retained. The cabinet was also
surprisingly expanded from 29 to 34 ministers, including
14 new faces.
Critics charged that Abdullah
expanded the cabinet to provide "jobs for the boys" - to
accommodate the aspirations of the 14-member-strong
Barisan Nasional (National Front) ruling coalition and
regional representation.
Many were disappointed
that the cabinet revamp did not live up to the
anti-corruption hype. "If integrity and the perception
of integrity are among the indispensable criteria for
the selection of cabinet ministers, then the first
Abdullah cabinet has failed the acid test," said Lim Kit
Siang, chairman of the opposition Democratic Action
Party.
Lim complained about the presence of
ministers such as Rafidah Aziz (international trade and
industry), Samy Vellu (works minister) and Nazri Abdul
Aziz (Prime Minister's Department). He said Abdullah
should not have reappointed any cabinet minister "who
had been tainted by corruption allegations or had not
been able to give a satisfactory accounting of serious
allegations of corruption, abuse of power, breach of
trust and various malpractices".
Abdullah's
cabinet reflects a cautious balancing act between the
old and the new. It suggests that the old guard are
still around - though they appeared to be given less
important or pruned portfolios, or else they remained
stagnant in old posts.
The security function of
the Home Affairs Ministry (previously headed by
Abdullah) was hived off into a new and powerful Internal
Security Ministry, which Abdullah took charge of,
leaving the rump Home Affairs Ministry to a loyalist.
Abdullah also retained control of another key
post, the finance portfolio, apart from the prime
minister's post. The premier's retention of internal
security and finance suggests that he is not yet ready
to ease his tight grip on the levers of power. He also
reappointed former banker Nor Mohamed Yakcop as second
finance minister in a move that is likely to assure the
business community.
Abdullah ally Muhyiddin
Yassin takes charge of agriculture and agri-based
industry, a sector Abdullah is keen on promoting.
Deputy Premier Najib Razak, the ambitious and
powerful son of Malaysia's second prime minister,
retains the defense portfolio. Hishamuddin Hussein, the
son of another former premier, rises to the education
portfolio, generally seen as a stepping-stone to greater
things.
As part of an overall streamlining of
cabinet functions, two new ministries were created and
others split to focus on specific areas such as tourism,
higher education and plantation industries and
commodities. Critics said the cabinet appeared unwieldy
and bloated. For instance, the Prime Minister's
Department has as many as six full ministers.
In
a move that raised eyebrows, the supposedly independent
Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) was
"moved" from the jurisdiction of the Foreign Ministry to
the Prime Minister's Department.
Abdullah
dismissed criticism of his new cabinet, saying that
critics would always be skeptical. "Since when have they
ever said anything good about what we have done?" he
asked. "I will run the government and I will run it my
way. We want to make sure that the people will benefit
from what we do."
One senior columnist in the
pro-government Star newspaper appeared to recognize that
the cabinet had not lived up to public expectations.
Could the premier have been "a little bit more radical
and bold in appointing his new cabinet, given that he
had been handed such a sweeping mandate in the 2004
general election?" he wondered. "Maybe yes; maybe not.
My view? I think he could."
He suggested that
Abdullah was constrained by many factors, such as the
need to share power among coalition parties, including
those from Sabah and Sarawak. He also had to ensure that
women were represented. Apart from this, he had to
accommodate the recommendations of the heads of the
ruling-coalition component parties for ministerial
positions for their respective party's top brass. Each
component party has an unofficial "quota" of ministerial
positions made available to it.
Analysts say
Abdullah is also probably concerned about not rocking
the boat too much ahead of the party elections of his
United Malays National Organization(UMNO) in the middle
of the year. Anxious not to create new enemies within
UMNO or upset the "warlords", Abdullah stuck to the safe
middle path of trying to accommodate as many interests
as possible while retaining a distinct Mahathirist
flavor.
But in the process, his anti-corruption
crusade appears to have been tarnished by some of the
names still in the cabinet.
The Abdullah
administration faces another test when the current
two-year terms of the Suhakam commissioners expire next
month. The commission is largely made up of
establishment personalities with few human-rights
credentials, and in the event, only a couple of them
have proved to be more vocal.
Many will also be
watching to see whether Abdullah will allow the Prime
Minister's Department to relinquish control of the
Anti-Corruption Agency to make it more independent.
Already, there have been calls for Abdullah to free the
press from official shackles so that it can highlight
cases of corruption and wrongdoing. Another area that
Abdullah has not touched on is the public perception of
the independence of the judiciary, which has nosedived.
All told, this latest cabinet lineup has proved
to be a something of a letdown for some Malaysians
hoping for a more transparent and accountable
government. Others, perhaps, are willing to give
Abdullah the benefit of the doubt, by suggesting that he
needs more time to consolidate his position step-by-step
and take a more gradualist approach.
Many
Malaysians were disturbed by the conduct of the
elections, during which numerous allegations of
electoral irregularities, including gerrymandering and
unequal media access to political parties, surfaced and
put the nominally independent Election Commission in
poor light. The circumstances surrounding Abdullah's
sweeping win raise all kinds of questions.
Abdullah himself raised public expectations of
sweeping reforms in government ahead of the polls. If he
doesn't start shaking out the system and cleaning up the
government soon, the reservoir of goodwill that drove
him so convincingly to power may dry up faster than he
expects.
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