The new appointments of 1 Gerakan Cabinet Ministers, 2 MCA Cabinet Ministers and 3 MCA Deputy Minister is a clear victory for personal interest over public interest, political positions over principle and UMNO’s dominance of BN over everything else. By being appointed to “empty and meaningless” Ministries of the Prime Minister Cabinet portfolios(except for the Transport Ministry), both MCA and Gerakan have shown they enjoy even less influence over BN government policy than Perkasa.
Despite MIC having fewer parliamentary seats of four to MCA’s 7, the 2 MIC Ministers were given more influential Ministries in important portfolios like Natural Resources and Environment and Health helmed by Datuk G. Palanievel and Datuk S Subramaniam. Public expectations were that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will at least replace some UMNO Cabinet Ministers to return traditional MCA portfolios to MCA. However this did not happen and instead of reducing UMNO Cabinet members, Najib chose to increase his Cabinet to 35 members.
For a country with a population of 28 million, this bloated Cabinet consists of 35 full ministers and 27 deputy ministers. This compares to 3 large countries with bigger populations but all having only 23 Cabinet Ministers, such as United Kingdom with 63 million people, the United States with 313 million people and even India with 1.1 billion people. On what basis and logic can Malaysia with a smaller population than UK, USA and even India has 50% more Cabinet members of 35 compared to their 23.
MCA can not claim that they were given fewer Cabinet posts because they won fewer seats in the 2013 general elections, because when MCA won big in the previous general elections and even saved UMNO/BN from defeat in the 1999 general elections, their Ministerial posts did not increase but remained at four. Clearly MCA is treated no different from “political beggars” and given “political crumbs” by not being rewarded when MCA won big and not given any respect when MCA lost.
Most unfortunate is that their Ministerial appointments were not accompanied by any new policy initiatives such as combating corruption through making public declaration of assets of Ministers or ending negotiated tenders in preference for open competitive tenders, institutionalized annual funding for Chinese and Tamil schools as well as focusing police resources to fighting crime so that people are not only safe but feel safe.
Gerakan President Mah Siew Keong did not even get Home Affairs Minister Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to withdraw and apologise for scolding the Chinese as ungrateful and neither did he get a genuine university for Teluk Intan that offered a full range of courses instead of only a teaching university. Both MCA and Gerakan failed to get UMNO to renounce their support of implementing hudud, stop unilateral conversion to Islam by any one parent or even act against racists and extremists that bully and threaten non-Muslims or non-Malays.
By failing to affirm that Malaysia has a Federal Constitution that is secular, MCA and Gerakan’s re-entry into Cabinet will not make any difference but will result in further political sandiwara of “opposing loudly outside” but “keeping quiet inside”. Clearly both MCA and Gerakan have not learnt the lessons of their electoral defeat in the 2013 general elections and looks set to revert to the “same-old, same-old” ways of obedient submission to UMNO’s dominance.