Khairy to Pakatan: Give us a shadow Cabinet

By Ken Vin Lek, Free Malaysia Today

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said that he will endorse any institutional reform to support allocation of funds to a structured Pakatan Rakyat shadow Cabinet, if it was formed.

“If Pakatan can actually commit to coming up with a shadow Cabinet, I will personally support the structural reform to attend to Pakatan’s call for more resources in various ministries.

“People right now want to know what is the readiness of Pakatan, if they were to actually win the next general election” he said.

Khairy was responding to questions at a forum organised by The Nutgraph last night in Bangsar near here.

Earlier in the forum, PJ Utara MP Tony Pua had dismissed the idea of a shadow Cabinet within Pakatan, citing lack of organised funding.

“Unlike the United Kingdom Cabinet, there is no such position in our Parliament. The thing which makes the UK so effective is the amount of research funds allocated to them,” said Pua.

“For Pakatan, we have no civil service behind us to help us with the policy papers and we simply do not have enough funds to employ them.

“That is why we chose to have one elected representative from each party in the coalition to helm a particular portfolio.”

Pua said the only way a shadow Cabinet could be formed was if there was institutional support.

In rebutting Pua’s claims, Khairy said these were merely “excuses” and that funding was secondary to a commitment to appointing an individual from the coalition to a particular portfolio.

“Even if the excuse is the lack of civil service support, we actually want to see who is your shadow minister.

“It just goes to show that Pakatan is not as solid a coalition if you cannot even come together and appoint a shadow cabinet,” Khairy said.

Umno needs a transformational reform

Posed with a question on Umno’s refusal to change despite the shocking outcome 2008 general election, Khairy said: “Umno members have an endemic DNA of Ketuanan Melayu deeply engrained in them.

“A lot of these members have to be sent back to political school and re-educated thus putting an end to the BTN (Biro Tata Negara) style of thinking.”

Touching on Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s response to Perkasa over the 10th MalaysiaPlan, Khairy said: “The PM has to spend quality time with right wing group within the party, like Perkasa.

“He cannot just appeal to one group of people. The last thing I want to happen is for the PM to be outflanked by members in the same party.”

Drawing a comparison, Khairy said former prime minister Abdullah Badawi was outflanked by the “patron of Perkasa” and his predecessor, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“As a result Abdullah was kicked out of power and I don’t want a similar scenario being repeated under the helm of Najib,” he said.

Khairy also dismissed suggestions that Umno needs to lose power in order to change, stating that 2008 was enough of a wake up call for them to respond to the people’s needs.