COMMENT BY PROF DR.P.RAMASMAY,
PRO TEM CHAIRMAN OF URIMAI PARTY
Cabinet reshuffle: Much ado about nothing
The much anticipated cabinet reshuffle is finally over. However, whether this is going to be last reshuffle before the elections, remains to be seen. From the appointment of ministers and deputies, it is clear that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was not bold enough to address the serious shortcomings of the earlier ministerial line-up.
Only one non-performing minister V. Sivakumar was dropped from the cabinet line-up. This was more to do with the MACC investigation into corruption involving foreign workers. Whether he was involved or not, but his assistants had to be sacked.
Sivakumar was replaced by Steven Sim, the former deputy minister in the finance ministry. I wonder given his lack of experience whether he will be able to helm the human resource ministry effectively. He is not known to take bold and imaginative initiatives.
Anwar did some balancing act of switching portfolios among former Umno ministers. He was not bold enough to sack the Umno ministers for incompetence.
Mohamad Hasan, Umno deputy president, was switched from the defence to the head the foreign ministry. Whether this had anything to do with the politics of Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi remains to be seen. Some say that Zahid wanted to weaken Hasan’s political base in Umno.
Apart from the human resource ministry, the other worst performing ministries were education, health, home affairs and communications and digital ministry.
It was typical of Anwar not to touch his loyalists and sycophants. For Anwar, they can do no wrong.
Despite the year-long problems with the education ministry on variety of issues, Anwar decided to retain Fadlina Sidek. His close family ties with her father was the reason she was not removed. Under different political circumstances, Fadlina would have been the first person to be dropped for her incompetence.
The former health minister Dr Fatima Mustapa said could not simply manage the ministry of health given certain vested interests, but she was not given the boot but transferred to the Prime Minister’s Department Federal Territories.
Her replacement was Dzulkfely Ahmad who had this portfolio earlier.
Fahmi Fadzil, the minister of communications and digitalisation, was retained as the minister of communications after the portfolio was split into two.
DAP’s Gobind Singh’s was given the new portfolio of digitalisation.
Saifudin Nasution Ismail another Anwar’s loyalist was retained as the minister of home affairs despite his earlier embarrassments on a number of issues especially his defence of an immigration officer for scolding a woman who could not speak in Malay while seeking to renew her passport.
The most objectionable part of the cabinet reshuffle was the complete marginalisation of the Indian community. The Indians completely lost out when it came to the appointment of ministers.
There was no replacement for Sivakumar who was removed. It is not that the DAP or PKR or the MIC had no candidates who could have been appointed ministers.
Anwar, despite his drama of dancing to the songs of MG Ramachandran (Tamil movie hero) and occasional quoting of verses from the Tamil Thirukural did not care about the Indians especially the Tamils who constitute 85 percent of the population.
Why was this so is not clear? It is just that Anwar has no respect for the Indians despite the latter’s support for him.
Apart from the existing deputy minister Saraswathi Kandasamy, senator from
PKR, Anwar appointed two additional deputy ministers. R. Ramanan from PKR and former human resource minister, M. Kulasegaran, from the DAP.
It was clearly a humiliation and demotion for Kulasegaran, a senior leader from the DAP. Yet, Kulasegaran accepted the appointment by thanking the Anwar.
When Anwar had no interest in appointing Indian Tamils to ministerial posts, what is the purpose of having two additional deputy ministers posts for the Indian community.
Without cabinet representation, how is it possible for Indian Tamils to defend and protect the Tamil schools, the Tamil language, the temples and most importantly advance the socio-economic interests of the community.
Given the non-appointment of Indian Tamils to the cabinet, I suggest three Indian deputy ministers to resign from their respective appointments as sign of protest.
Such an unselfish act would be appreciated by the large majority of the Indian community.
Perhaps, Kulasegaran can pave the way for others!
