Factsheet: Your questions about Muhyiddin's cabinet answered

Muhyiddin Yassin announced his new cabinet today, a week after he was sworn-in as the eighth prime minister.

How big is the cabinet? Are there more women? Who are the top guns who were left out? Malaysiakini helps you to answer these questions, read on.

Is this cabinet bigger?

Yes, and more expensive too.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s cabinet had 27 ministers, of which Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail held two portfolios. Mahathir appointed 26 deputy ministers.

Muhyiddin Yassin’s cabinet has 32 portfolios and appointed 38 deputy ministers. Seven ministries have two deputy ministers.

Who are the non-politicians?

Two non-politicians will be co-opted into the new government.

They are CIMB Group chief executive officer Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, 46, and Federal Territories mufti Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri, 51. They will be appointed as senators.

Tengku Zafrul has 24 years of experience in the financial industry while Zulkifli, who has a moderate image, has been the Federal Territories mufti since 2014.

How many cabinet positions did each party receive?

Bersatu has the lion’s share of cabinet and deputy minister positions, despite ranking second in terms of the number of MPs on the government bench.

Bersatu controls 34 percent of the cabinet positions despite having only 26 percent of the total MPs on the government bench.

The runner-up is Umno which has 28 percent of the cabinet positions despite controlling 35 percent of the MPs on the government bench.

Gabungan Party Sarawak (GPS) came in third despite tying PAS in terms of number of MPs.

Both have 18 MPs respectively but GPS received four cabinet ministers while PAS has three.

All in all, Bersatu will have 11 ministers, Umno nine, GPS four, PAS three, MCA two, MIC one and PBS one.

As for deputy ministers, Bersatu will have 14, followed by Umno at nine, PAS and GPS at five respectively, MCA at three, PBRS at one and Star at one.

Which senior party leaders are not appointed as a minister?

Both Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Umno deputy president Mohamad Hassan were not appointed into the new government.

The most senior Umno leader by rank to be appointed into the cabinet is Noraini Ahmad (higher education minister).

She is Umno Wanita chief, which last year was elevated to be on par with the position of an Umno deputy president.

Only one of the three Umno vice-presidents were appointed into the government. Ismail Sabri Yaakob is the defence minister while Khaled Nordin and Mahdzir Khalid were not included.

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang was not included in the new government but his deputy Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man was appointed as the environment minister.

There was no surprise that PAS vice-presidents Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar and Mohd Amar Abdullah were not appointed as they are the Terengganu and Kelantan menteri besars respectively. However, Idris Ahmad, who does not hold a state leadership position, was not appointed.

PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan was appointed as a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of law and parliamentary affairs, a key position that can influence legislative reforms.

MIC president S Vigneswaran was also not included in the cabinet. He is currently a Dewan Negara senator.

His party deputy M Saravanan has been appointed as the human resources minister.

In GPS, the head of PBB (Abang Johari Openg), PRS (James Masing) and SUPP (Sim Kui Hian) are understandably not included as they are already part of the Sarawak cabinet.

An exception is PDP president Tiong King Sing who was appointed as the deputy national unity minister.

What is the proportion of female cabinet ministers or deputies?

There are five female cabinet ministers and four deputy ministers. The numbers were the same in the previous cabinet.

However, it should be noted that Dr Wan Azizah held two cabinet positions at the time and there are more deputy ministers now than before.

How many cabinet positions did Azmin Ali’s faction receive?

Former PKR deputy president Azmin Ali is instrumental in making the new Perikatan Nasional government possible as he engineered defections that contributed several MPs to the new coalition.

Including Azmin, there were 10 MPs which left PKR for Bersatu following the “Sheraton Move”.

Of this figure, Rashid Hasnon was the only one who did not become either a cabinet minister or deputy minister. It should be noted that Rashid is the current Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker.

Their appointments are as follow:

Ministers

Azmin Ali

Saifuddin Abdullah

Zuraida Kamaruddin

Deputy Ministers:

Ali Biju

Jonathan Yassin

Kamaruddin Jaffar

Mansor Othman

Santhara Kumar

Willie Mongin

How many cabinet minister or deputy minister positions were taken up by politicians from Sabah and Sarawak?

There are four cabinet ministers from Sarawak and one from Sabah. That makes a total of five from East Malaysia, up from just two in the previous cabinet.

So, currently, 15 percent of cabinet ministers are from East Malaysia although about 20 percent of the MPs who support Muhyiddin are from the region.

It is a bit closer to parity where deputy ministers are concerned as eight of them come from East Malaysia.

Were any ministries abolished? Are there new ministries?

Most noticeably, there is no longer a cabinet position for deputy prime minister. However, Muhyiddin could name one later.

Muhyiddin has also removed the Unity and Social Harmony Department in the Prime Minister’s Department and replaced it with a standalone National Unity Ministry.

Four ministries were either renamed or consolidated:

Agriculture and Agro-based Industry;

Energy, Green Technology, Science and Climate Change;

Natural Resources and Environment; and

Primary Industries. - Mkini