NO need for Pakatan to reveal its shadow cabinet
Yes, we all know that Najib Razak has been always harping on such issue and his latest statement sounds, "Do not talk about forming the government, form a shadow cabinet first". Najib is trying to get the general public to put an extensive political pressure onto the leaders of the opposition Pakatan coalition to name their shadow cabinet in order to prove their ability to govern the nation.
This is one political trick mounted by Najib and his BN people in order to put Pakatan into a very difficult situation. There it goes, Najib did little success by getting some public pressure onto Pakatan on the issue of naming a shadow cabinet.
We call on the opposition leader, NO need to be so overly concern about such issue or highlights. It is merely a political game set by BN and Umno so that Pakatan could take a sweep on it and fall into the trap.
First, when Najib and the rest of these BN leaders are harping on the shadow cabinet issue, what kind of system are they referring to as an example? United Kingdom, Australia, Thailand, South Africa or New Zealand? These BN leaders (which also include Najib) cannot just say, "just any kind of shadow cabinet will do, that's it!" This is not right. If by saying such, it is indeed a very irresponsible act on the BN side.
Why? The condition in the parliamentary sessions has already reveal all. Are there any laws or governing system within the parliament that gives due recognition to the Opposition bench to perform their duties and responsibilities in a proper and democratic manner? Example, allowing an opposition motion to be table, allowing a debate on proposed laws, allowing reports or any findings to be scrutinised, allowing sufficient time to all members of the Opposition bench to participate in all parliamentary debates, discussions, motions and so on.
What we have been seeing all this while in the parliament is, whatever issues which are being tabled in the parliament by members of the Opposition bench are being shot down most of the time by the Speaker (who is from BN side). So, can any BN leaders tell us that, whether this is parliamentary democracy or otherwise?
Second, in countries like United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand and Ireland, to name a few, members of the Opposition bench in these countries are given due respect and their role are being recognised as part of the nation-building effort, not only politically, but also economically and the situation are entirely social-friendly. The institution of shadow cabinet do exist in these countries' establishment.
Apart from that, Opposition members in these countries are also given wide access into the ministries and departments that they are observing and scrutinising as well as all their various research activities are being funded fully by the government. Members of the shadow cabinet in these countries are also given the utmost support by the civil service in order to ensure the governance of the nation are in the interest of the people at large.
But in the case of Malaysia, what the Opposition members here got? Nothing at all. What they got here is bashing after bashing by the BN side, Opposition members are very often labelled as the nation's number one enemy, accused of treason (derhaka), ungrateful, threatening the nation's security and public order, trying to destabilise the economy and the most recent one, being accused of trying to get George Soros in to help govern Malaysia. The Malaysian parliament here does not even recognise the institution of a shadow cabinet.
Third, if Pakatan were to name its "shadow cabinet", what happen then? Pakatan would certainly fall into the BN's trap of "racial analysis". Yes, it is the BN's trap of "racial analysis" which is very disturbing. What if Pakatan were to name non-Malays shadow ministers into the portfolios of finance, defence, home affairs, education or foreign affairs? There are sure to be some sort of race-based bashing onto such moves.
Some leaders of Umno and Perkasa would then say, an "ethnic Chinese" defence minister would later raise a Chinese regiment to go against the Malay regiment, an "ethnic Indian" home affairs minister would one day raise an Indian police force in order to get rid of the currently Malay-dominated police force and many more. They would certainly use race-based agendas to attack a would be Pakatan line-up.
Is there anything wrong if a non-Malay were to helm the defence, home affairs, education or foreign affairs ministries? Is there anything wrong if a non-Chinese were to put to take charge of the transport and health ministries? Is there anything wrong if a non-Indian were to assigned to the works ministry and so on?
Heavily race-based views and politics, this is the kind of product which Umno is still using. And if such continues to haunt the minds of all our Malaysians, we Malay, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Dayaks, Muruts, Sikhs or whatever we are, will continue to be divided politically, socially and economically till the end.
The Pakatan's current initiation of frontbench committees amongst its Opposition members of parliament is already sufficient to prove their abilities to provide various check and balance onto their respective ministtries that they are assigned to. It does not symbolise the weakness of the Opposition coalition in naming an individual to shadow a ministry but it functions more like a parliamentary-based committee that overseas various portfolios. The frontbench committees had so far proven to be effective in exposing various scandals and mismanagements in the Umno-led BN government.
Take for example, in the United States and the Philippines, there are no shadow cabinets in these two nations at all to oversee the government ministries and departments. Instead, there are congressional and senate committeess established to oversee the performance of each government ministry portfolios, where check and balance were being carried out very often via various congressional and senate committee hearings. Practically a transparent kind of system too.
So, why the big fuss of NOT having a shadow cabinet?
