- 2 months ago
- #considerthis
A major cabinet reshuffle has been announced, going well beyond filling four vacant ministerial posts. What changed, what didn’t, and what does the shake-up signal? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Ibrahim Suffian, Co-founder & Programmes Director of Merdeka Center for Opinion Research.
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00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:13where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. Prime
00:18Minister Anu Ibrahim announced a new cabinet line-up today going well beyond filling the
00:23four vacant ministerial posts. What changed, what didn't and what does the shake-up signal to us
00:30about the direction of the Madani administration? Joining me now on the line to discuss his father
00:34is Ibrahim Sufyan, Ben as he is more affectionately known. He's the co-founder and programs director
00:40of Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research. Good evening Ben, thanks so much for joining me on the show
00:45today. I'd love to start our conversation by getting your initial thoughts about the cabinet
00:50reshuffle. What are you making of this line-up? I think this cabinet reshuffle is timely. I mean
00:58considering that we have a number of vacancies that need to be filled up but when I look at it
01:05within the limits of or rather the constraints that the prime minister is faced being the leader of a
01:11coalition comprising many many parties I think he's done remarkably well. Number one to address some of
01:19the critical portfolios and have them headed by what seem to be fairly competent people. At the same
01:28time we also understand that there are representational issues for different communities. He's tried to
01:34make good on that despite the fact that maybe some people may not be happy with choices particularly even
01:41coming from the same party and finally you know there are compromises that need to be made that he has to
01:50maintain some people otherwise the reshuffle will be too large and create a lot of unnecessary learning
01:59curves that need to be perverse before we head into towards the end of the political term you know mindful
02:07that we just have about two years before general elections are to be called so we think that this is
02:13pretty much the last shuffle of the deck before we go towards elections perhaps in 2027.
02:19all right so let's take a look at the dropped ministers ben um what do these removals uh signal to
02:28you i mean do they reflect performance issues of the the minister the outgoing ministers or is it
02:34something else altogether it's hard to uh specifically mention performance partly because a lot of what happens
02:43uh within uh within the ministries are not you know completely in the knowledge of the public uh having
02:52said that uh there are i think two ministers who were dropped uh minister for religious affairs dr naim and
02:58also dr zaliha mustafa was dropped as minister for federal territories um i think for the former it is uh i think
03:08an important portfolio relating to islam and also um you know addressing the issues about um the sentiments of the
03:18muslim community uh i think that the performance you know have been an average but i think the prime minister
03:27desires more action particularly mindful that we have two more years to the general election and the battleground for the
03:36coming election you know uh is definitely going to be the hearts and minds of the country's muslim voters uh
03:43and i think he has promoted the deputy dr zulkifli um a close ally of the prime minister but also someone
03:50who's scholarly and an activist at heart uh to try and shake things up and contest the space in the malay muslim sphere
04:00uh without you know aggravating the other segments of society with respect to dr zaleha um i think this is a
04:09situation where uh she has not created controversy and she has i think performed remarkably well in terms of
04:18addressing the issues within kuala lumpur but perhaps in the context of coalition politics and the need to
04:25shuffle the deck uh you know somebody has to go and it's unfortunate that uh she had to be the one
04:31right well somebody has to go you're right it's a cabinet reshuffle will require some people being
04:37dropped some people being moved um but there were ministries that which have been criticized for
04:44underperformance uh quite vocally and publicly um that were left untouched so talk to me about the
04:51non-moves ben how should we read that yeah i'm just going to be frank here and i think when we look at
05:00social media sentiments and what other political observers uh you know have been postulating over
05:07the last couple of years you know there are a couple of portfolios you know notably the ministry of
05:12education and to some extent ministry of communication the ministers of which have been criticized in the
05:18past uh but i think here the prime minister has used his prerogative to maintain uh the ministers in
05:26part because i think he continues to retain trust in them that i think he uh knows how they are performing
05:34deep inside uh and also the difficulty of managing the portfolios and the issues that they have to address
05:43uh i think he's more sympathetic to them and they still continue to have his trust so he's maintained
05:49some of those ministers that uh maybe some segments of the public and the political space
05:55uh have criticized in the past uh and i think on this note you know i i sort of see the perspective that
06:02some of the issues that these ministries and the particular ministers have to contend with
06:07are not something that's very easily resolved it's easy to criticize but you know once you're in the
06:12shoes of these individuals helping such complex uh ministries tackling very difficult issues sometimes you
06:21know you need to have somebody that may not fulfill you know the public image of an effective minister
06:28but maybe an honest hard-working uh individual that is earnest and true to the job so there are i think
06:36considerations that we as members of the public are not aware of and i think the prime minister has made
06:41his call on that okay uh and you mentioned at the start of our conversation that there are
06:47he prime minister ibrahim will have many considerations to weigh in um in reshuffling this lineup uh one of
06:56them being the fact that you know he's leading a coalition government i want to focus in on dap um after
07:03particularly after they are poor showing in sabah and they had promised that they will accelerate
07:09reforms within the next six months how would you characterize dap's position in the reshuffle how did they
07:16come out from this lineup well i think dap you know has you know like a mixed bag you know in terms of the
07:25outcome of this particular reshuffle number one i think one of the effective ministers like stephen sim
07:31has been moved to a different portfolio now so he's in in charge of cooperatives uh meanwhile and he's
07:39been moved out from human resources and now human resources had held by a pkr vice president uh dato
07:46sri ramanan uh and hannah yo has been moved from youth and sports and now heading ft ministry net net dap has not
07:55gained or lost but however in terms of uh profile and prominence maybe uh you know it's been taken off
08:03a notch a little bit uh that said it also allows them room to focus on addressing the internal issues
08:13uh that they have to face with their own supporters and the public at large uh they have to work within
08:19the coalition with the prime minister to prioritize the areas of reform that they feel is necessary
08:25in order to regain the confidence of the public and i think the context you know that this is coming
08:31from uh the sabah state elections is something that's interesting because at one level people are
08:37looking at sabah and expecting that sabah election is going to foretell the outcome of the next general
08:43election but if you look closely into what happened in sabah it is a microcosm of its own it has its own
08:49political environment and uh factors that drive voter sentiments there which are not all completely
08:55alike with the rest of the country so there are some sabah specific issues there but i think dap is not
09:01resting they're not taking it easy uh they will press ahead and i think the portfolios that they're given
09:08uh continues to provide them with the space to excel and also to show members of the public that
09:16they are effective team players they can enact reforms in the space that they're given and eventually
09:23win back the trust of the public okay so if sabah's election results was a reflection of the microcosm there
09:30help us understand what the national public sentiment is towards the madani administration
09:37ben you lead a um uh a a poll a pollster outfit so talk to me a little bit about what merdeka center's
09:46data is reflecting in terms of how the malaysian public ranks or rates um ibrahim's administration now
09:55as you say at the kind of slightly over the the mid uh mid cycle point yeah i mean uh we are in a
10:03quandary to be honest with you because right at the time when the sabah election campaign was running
10:08we actually ran a national survey and what we found in the national survey which ended uh in the third
10:15week of november was actually the rating of the federal government the prime minister as well as the
10:21you know broader national level mood is actually quite upbeat uh so at the time when we carried out the
10:28survey which was which ended on the 26th of november the prime minister's approval rating nationally uh
10:35was 57 percent which is higher than the time uh last time that we made available publicly which was 55
10:43uh sometime in may uh so national mood at that point in time was actually upbeat and and it is i think
10:51coming out from i think three important events i think the first one is what everybody's aware that
10:57nation's successful chairmanship of aSEAN you know raised the profile of the country generated a lot of
11:02interest as well as uh you know promises of investment potential number two we also know that uh domestically
11:11the economic mode is improving slightly i wouldn't say broadly speaking but generally there is an
11:18improvement in terms of economic indicators and people's willingness to spend you know one simple
11:24anecdotal indicator is the thousands of people who were stranded in had nyai by the floods they do
11:30have disposable income except that they were stranded there and then thirdly is that people do feel
11:36that the stability that the country uh has now enjoyed is translating into uh socioeconomic and
11:44political benefits that they are less focused on politics but more focused in terms of getting ahead in
11:49terms of the livelihoods so all of that is quite positive however the result of sabah uh puts a
11:55dampener on the overall mood particularly amongst people in politics because they were expecting that
12:02the voters in sabah would uh celebrate the madani administration and give scores there however what we
12:10found in sabah is that voters in sabah voted along state level dynamics there are issues that voters in sabah
12:17have contended with for decades and they are unhappy with how things are done there and they have
12:22showed uh how uh they view these things in the way they voted in some parts of sabah you know the
12:29traditional way of politics remain very strong and uh the warlords and people who have strong grip on
12:36the grassroots continue to win so the country is moving in a way at two tracks you know the rest of the
12:40the country seems to be doing quite okay but in sabah the mood towards uh the you know the government
12:47as well as you know some of the political parties is a bit dim well ben thank you so much for sharing
12:54your insights on the show i appreciate your time as always great talking to you ibrahim sufyan there from
12:59merdeka center we're going to take a quick break here and consider this we'll be back with more about
13:03the cabinet cabinet reshuffle so stay tuned we'll be right back
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