[UPDATED] Pakatan has most ministers with 15 out of 28, BN gets six

KUALA LUMPUR – Pakatan Harapan (PH) took the bulk of cabinet posts announced tonight, with 15 out of 28 ministers in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government.

Of the 15, PKR has eight ministers, DAP four, Amanah two, and Upko one.

Barisan Nasional (BN) has six, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) five, and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) one. One more minister is not from any party and will have to be appointed as a senator.

Of the five from GPS, three are from its linchpin-party Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu, one from the Progressive Democratic Party, and one from Parti Rakyat Sarawak.

All six from BN, meanwhile, are from Umno, leaving MCA and MIC without any representation in the cabinet, so far. Deputy ministers, as well as the federal territories minister, have yet to be announced.

The lone GRS representative, Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali, is a former Umno man now with Bersatu. Sabah Bersatu, despite being a component party of federal opposition Perikatan Nasional, is part of GRS which is supporting Anwar’s unity government.

The sole non-politician in tonight’s line-up is Datuk Mohd Na’im Mokhtar, who was named religious affairs minister in Anwar’s cabinet. The shariah court chief judge will have to be appointed a member of the Dewan Negara in order to serve as a minister.

Dewan Negara President Tan Sri Rais Yatim earlier tonight said some senators will be sworn in tomorrow at 8.30am.

Another unelected minister named tonight is Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, the former finance minister who is now international trade and industry minister in Anwar’s cabinet.

BN’s Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir and PKR’s Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail also contested in the 15th general election but lost, and will have to be made senators.

With 28 ministers so far, Anwar’s cabinet currently matches the number of ministers in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s administration when PH held federal power from 2018 to 2022. The PH government then also had 27 deputies.

In contrast, the cabinets of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob had 70 ministers and deputies.

Anwar, who was sworn in as the country’s 10th prime minister on November 24, had pledged to downsize the cabinet to save costs, but also had to deal with the challenge of placating rivals BN and GPS in exchange for their support to form a unity government.

The result of the 15th general election was a hung Parliament, with PH winning 83 seats, BN 30, GPS 23, and GRS six. Anwar also has the support of Sabah Warisan’s three MPs, as well as one each from Parti Bangsa Malaysia and Sabah’s Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat.

With this, his government has two-thirds of the Dewan Rakyat’s 222 MPs.

Opposition Perikatan Nasional, meanwhile, has 73 seats. – The Vibes, December 2, 2022