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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is
expected to unveil a streamlined new cabinet early next week,
cutting back posts after unprecedented election losses, a report
said Thursday.
The Star daily cited sources as saying that
posts would be trimmed in line with the smaller government presence
in parliament, where it now has 140 lawmakers compared to 198 in the
outgoing administration.
Abdullah told the state Bernama news agency the
new line-up would reflect the coalition’s racial power-sharing
concept and would include all the communities, majority Muslim
Malays and minority ethnic Chinese and Indians.
“Wait a few more days,” he said late
Wednesday, when asked when the cabinet would be unveiled.
The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition lost its
two-thirds majority for the first time in four decades, and conceded
four more states to a resurgent opposition in March 8 polls.
Abdullah’s previous cabinet had a whopping 32
ministers, 39 deputy ministers and 20 parliamentary secretaries,
with jobs handed out to many of the 14 race-based parties that make
up the Barisan Nasional.
The large cabinet had been criticized as
unwieldy and wasteful, but The Star said Abdullah faced a headache
in reducing positions while still keeping the coalition members
happy. It said some ministries could be merged.
Political observers have also said that Abdullah
will have difficulties finding ethnic minority candidates to fill
prominent posts, after the Chinese and Indian parties in the
coalition were punished in the elections.
The only Indian cabinet minister in the outgoing
administration, Samy Vellu, lost his parliamentary seat, which he
had held since 1974.
The minority parties in the coalition bore the
brunt of voter anger over the rising “Islamization” of Malaysia
and criticisms the government was insensitive to the needs of
minorities.
-- AFP
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