Thursday April 9, 2009

Umno may give up four posts

By WONG SAI WAN

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno will lead the way by giving up three or four ministerial posts in the new slimmer Cabinet to be unveiled at 3pm today.

Party sources said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had spent the last five days juggling names and positions to take into consideration the requests and views from various Barisan Nasional component parties.

“However, his biggest headache has been the Umno list. Najib will be breaking with convention with this new line-up.

“No longer will geographical considerations and victories at the party elections be major factors,” said one party official.

He was referring to the previous practice of ensuring that every state Umno had at least one representative in the Cabinet and that all victors in the party elections were rewarded with posts.

It is speculated that there could be as many as seven new faces in the line-up – most of them from Umno.

Other sources said that Najib had drawn up the list based on the Cabinet’s needs and the party’s expectations.

“The difficulty is that some states will have no representative at all in the new Cabinet and Najib will try to balance this when drawing up the list of deputy ministers.

“He also had to draw up the state party liaison line-up as well to reflect his Cabinet choices.

“The state party committees can also be used to placate those not given government jobs despite their party election successes,” said a party veteran.

Party officials pointed out that Najib, as the newly-elected Umno president, also had to give thought to appointments to major party posts, like the information chief and secretary-general.

He had to decide whether the people appointed to these posts should also be made ministers.

Najib’s officers said there was also background checks to be done on the people he had chosen, especially the new faces, and that this process took time.

Until yesterday evening, several Barisan component leaders had met with Najib and Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who will be named Deputy Prime Minister today.

The message Najib had for all of them was the same – that Umno was giving up quite a number of posts and that they should also be willing to make sacrifices.

Najib is expected to downsize his Cabinet, which now has 27 ministries and 31 ministers.

At present, Umno has 22 ministers, the MCA four, and the MIC, Upko, SUPP, PBB and PBS one each.

The new Cabinet is expected to have between 20 and 24 ministries, with no more than 27 ministers. Several ministries are expected to be merged.

Insiders said the ministries which could be merged are Tourism with Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage; Education with Higher Education; Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs with International Trade and Industry; and Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries with Plantation Industries and Commodities.

There have also been suggestions that the Federal Territories Ministry be merged with the Housing and Local Government portfolio.

Three ministries – Works; Energy, Water and Communications and Science, Technology and Innovation – could also be merged into two ministries.

This means that seven new ministries will be created from 13 merged ones.

Speculation is also rife as to which portfolios Najib and Muhyiddin will hold.

The Prime Minister is likely to hang on to the important Finance Ministry while Muhyiddin is likely to be given the Home Ministry, although it is understood that the new Deputy Prime Minister has asked that he be allowed to retain his International Trade and Industry portfolio.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/4/9/nation/3660773&sec=nation