‘Whispered’ shadow cabinet bloated like satiated leech?
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One of BN’s problems has been the appointment of ministers, not so much in key ministries but in ensuring at least a ministerial position for each and every component party in the alliance (I borrowed the word ‘alliance’ from BN’s predecessor Perikatan to distinguish it from the (Pakatan ‘coalition).
This is the principal reason why the Malaysian government cabinet has been embarrassingly over bloated.
And as part of the PM’s ang pow-ish largesse, even deputy ministers are created, so as to convince those appointed to these positions that they are ministers but disguising the reality they are just parliamentary permanent secretaries and not part of the cabinet proper. Mostly, they are over glorified assistants to the real ministers and, I suspect wakakaka, spent most of their time idling in lounge rooms outside their respective bosses’ office, eating publicly funded kueh muehs, coffee and tea, and sometimes even heavy lunches of typical but expensively catered Malaysian fare.
When I read Selana Tay’s article Pakatan’s ‘shadow cabinet’ list in Free Malaysian Today, I thought it (the Pakatan shadow cabinet) was a Kafkaesque joke, with the potential for Pakatan to outdo BN in the numbers department. 15 ministries including shared deputy prime minister-ships were listed, with each having at least 3 if not more names, making a total of no less than 45 and probably exceeding 60. WTF!
Sweetie Selena admitted that her list has been compiled from a combination of:
(a) discussions with a Pakatan MP who wished to remain anonymous but who was probably from PKR, and as usual, by suggesting some key nominees in the secret list, was pre-empting their supposed allies from choice ministries wakakaka,
(b) observations from the performances and statements of Pakatan MPS and most strangely, ADUNs during their debates in the Parliament or State Legislative Assemblies. And how the f* would an ADUN be making federal level type policies?, and
(c) personal conversations with the shadow ministers, their friends or their acquaintances, where in the first place the former (shadow ministers, other than the PM-designate) don’t exist and the opinions of the last two would be more hopeful and interested-centred rather than credible or reliable.
No, I won’t hold much store by the list that Sweetie has written, perhaps more to mitigate against the BN sting that Pakatan is still incapable of coming up with a shadow cabinet than it be a genuine secret Pakatan plan.
That’s right, it’s not official at all, though we know a particular PKR leader (not Anwar) wakakaka has a habit of announcing policies unilaterally on behalf of Pakatan (minus any consultation with PAS or DAP) where one can see those unilateral policies had been his wet dreams, where no doubt this one (list of shadow cabinet nominees) would be one too.
Anyway, continuing with Sweetie’s article – for a start, according to Article 43 of the Malaysian Constitution, ADUNs who are also MP cannot have it both ways, that is, by continuing to be ADUNs (and even MBs or CMs or State Exco members) while becoming federal ministers or deputy ministers. They have to choose between being a federal minister (or deputy minister) or an ADUN.
Thus, if Lim Guan Eng wants to continue being CM of Penang, and most Penangites want him to thus I am confident he will be re-elected in the next state election to be again, then he can’t be appointed as a federal minister (assuming Pakatan takes Putrajaya).
He can of course be CM of Penang as well as an ordinary federal MP in which case he can and will serve in both State and Federal Parliaments, but not as a federal minister. On the other hand, if he wants to be a federal minister, then he can kiss goodbye to his CM job and Ayer Putih ADUN position.
Likewise with potential MBs like Nizar Jamaluddin (of Perak), Pak Haji Nik Aziz (of Kelantan), Salahuddin Ayub (of Johor and wakakaka to Chua Jui Meng) and …
…. assuming he is not back/front/side-stabbed wakakaka, Khalid Ibrahim (of Selangor) who like Lim GE has to decide whether he wants to be a federal minister or MB of a state – maybe PKR has already planned for one of the inner coterie like the world-renowned Apcet II destroyer Saifuddin Nasution wakakaka to be MB of that important State …
… and f* that Azizan Abdul Razak of Kedah who I doubt will be MB of Kedah again after the next rice-state election.
