Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's cabinet is looking more and more like a Zimbabwean government.
MIC president G Palanivel has been made a minister on account that he will do Umno’s bidding. Palanivel will be Uncle-Tom-ming or in this case Uncle-Jibbing all the way.
What has Palanivel offered? Nothing!
He didn’t win any parliamentary seat. His contribution to Hulu Selangor when he was MP there nearly cost Barisan Nasional its the seat last by-election.
Palanivel was made a senator, deputy minister and now full minister on account of what?
He will do Umno’s biddings.
Palanivel lacks the the merit and people’s mandate. How can he speak with conviction about Indians?
The just released Dr Micheal D Jeyakumar of Parti Socialis Malaysia (PSM) is held in higher esteem than Palanivel.
Frankly if Palanivel is the deeply religious person everyone seems to think he is and has any moral compunction, he will decline the offer of a cabinet post.
What will Palanivel do as a minister? Which job in the Prime Minister’s Department is not already being done by someone else now?
PKR has more Indian MPs than MIC. In the next round, MIC will probably be decimated.
Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) claims to also represent the Indians. MIC which won only three seats last time, now it has two full ministers. That’s quite an achievement. In addition it two deputy minister’s post as well.
Largest cabinet ever
I know cabinet appointments are the prerogative of the PM Najib as head of the cabinet. But I think cabinet appointment must also reflect a moral stand
What Palanivel has done is to just add to the notoriety of the Najib cabinet being the largest in our history.
Tengku Abdul Rahman had a cabinet of some 16 people I think. Pak Lah had 33 and Najib now has 39.
That’s one short of the fabled number of a group of 40 people who made a living by relieving others off their wealth and property. The Najib cabinet is eerily becoming a Zimbabwean cabinet.
Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe in an effort to demonstrate substance keeps on increasing the number of cabinet members.
People seemed to think that the seriousness of governance is measured by the increase in the number of cabinet positions.
Which reminds me of my late economics professor at University Malaya, Harcharan Singh, who used to say that in Russia there’s no unemployment of any kind because one cow is looked after by 40 people.
In which case we will have a zero unemployment cabinet then. But then we know that MIC Indians are a priviledged lot.
Threaten the PM and he will succumb to threats. The PM should have taken up the dare by the MIC Indians that they will not support the BN. See if the MIC leaders can talk big without any positions in the government.
The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman and an FMT columnist. This is an excerpt from his sakmongkolak47 blog.
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