Malaysia PM using landslide to overhaul cabinet

Malaysia PM using landslide to overhaul cabinet

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, fresh from a landslide election victory, will overhaul his cabinet and restructure the finance ministry next week, sources close to the leadership said on Tuesday.

Abdullah is expected to retain the finance minister's post himself. However, when a new, enlarged cabinet is sworn in next Tuesday around one-third could be new, the sources said.

Malaysia's prime minister vowed on Tuesday not to slacken his anti-corruption campaign following his landslide election win over the fundamentalist Muslim opposition, and asked for more time to consider whether to dump old hands from his Cabinet.

A day after being sworn in as leader with Malaysia's biggest- ever parliamentary majority, Abdullah said his main tasks would be fighting corruption, improving the performance of public servants and pushing for an ethics code for lawmakers.

"These are all competing priorities, and I have to attend to all of them," Abdullah told radio network Hitz.FM.

Abdullah's stand against graft and his call for stronger ethics in governance since taking over last October, plus his own clean image, delivered stunning wins in state and parliamentary elections on Sunday.

"He didn't have the mandate before. But he does now," said one insider, adding up to 40 percent of the cabinet will be new.

"For the next six months to a year he can do whatever he wants, drop anyone he wants -- the mandate is entirely his. If he doesn't do it, people will wonder," he said.

Abdullah is expected to stay out of the public eye until Thursday as he finalizes his choices, but on Friday he is expected to name the chief ministers of Malaysia's states.

Twelve of the country's 13 states were won by the multi-racial Barisan Nasional coalition, while the alliance took more than 90 percent of seats in parliament.

Meanwhile, Hundreds of opposition supporters on Tuesday denounced what they called flaws in Malaysia's weekend polls and demanded an investigation into the result.

The protesters accused the Election Commission of conspiring with the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, accusing it of, among other things, excluding hundreds of people from the ballot and the registering a nine-year-old boy to vote.

"We have proof and all our protests are firmly founded," Islamist opposition party secretary-general Nasharuddin Mat Isa said in a letter to the National Human Rights Commission.

Abdullah made slight changes in January to the cabinet he inherited from Mahathir, but now he will axe and promote members of his own United Malays National Organization (UMNO) without fear of any backlash from party warlords.

There is little he can do about the ministers nominated from the Chinese and Indian parties in the UMNO-led coalition.

The sources outlined several changes to key positions.

The Finance Ministry was likely to be split, with Mustapa Mohamed, head of the National Economic Action Council (NEAC), given additional charge of the powerful Economic Planning Unit (EPU).

The EPU is in charge of privatization and the award of projects while the NEAC guides economic policy. Mustapa is a trained economist, a technocrat with a spotless reputation who served under Mahathir's two-time finance minister Daim Zainuddin.

Nor Mohamed Yakcop was likely to be retained as Second Finance Minister, overseeing the Treasury and its investment arm Khazanah Nasional and the Employees Provident Fund.

Another likely casualty from Abdullah's win could be Entrepreneur Development Minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, who was recently beset by a scandal over the award of taxi licenses.

Abdullah is expected to wield the axe on others too, though several old timers from Mahathir's cabinets are retiring. Najib Razak will remain Deputy Prime Minister for sure after being appointed by Abdullah in January. Najib, a son of the country's second prime minister, is most likely to keep the defense portfolio, but he could be take over as interior minister, another post currently held by Abdullah.

Najib's cousin, Hishamuddin Hussein, the sports minister who heads the youth wing of Abdullah's United Malays National Organization, is a possible candidate for Defense, or may be put in charge of a public enterprise.

Rafidah Aziz, the feisty veteran of Mahathir's cabinets and one of the longest serving trade ministers attending World Trade Organization negotiations, is seen keeping her portfolio.