The leaders of MCA and Gerakan were appointed to “empty and meaningless” ministerial posts in Prime Minister Najib Razak's cabinet, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said today.

Except, for the Transport Ministry, currently held by MCA president Liow Tiong Lai, Lim said, both MCA and Gerakan enjoy even less influence over the policies of the BN government than Malay rights NGO Perkasa.  

Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general, went on to criticise MCA for allowing itself to be treated no different from “political beggars” and given “political crumbs” by Umno.

Despite MIC having fewer parliamentary seats, four compared with the MCA’s seven, the two MIC ministers in the cabinet hold more influential ministries, he added.

MIC president G. Palanivel helms the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, while his deputy in the party, Dr S Subramaniam, is the minister of health.

"Most unfortunate is that the new ministerial appointments were not accompanied by any new policy initiatives," Lim said.

'People want corruption combatted'

Among the policy initiatives the people want to see, he said, are combatting corruption through making public declaration of the assets of ministers and ending negotiated tenders in preference for open competitive tenders.

He also noted that there was no sign of institutionalised annual funding for Chinese and Tamil schools as well as the focusing of police resources on fighting crime, so that the people would not only be safe but feel safe as well.

Lim was referring to the new appointments of one Gerakan and two MCA ministers and three MCA deputy ministers by Najib.

Instead of reducing the Umno cabinet members, he said, Najib chose to increase the number of cabinet ministers to 35, and he described it as a "bloated cabinet".

"It is a clear victory for personal interest  over public interest, political positions over principles and Umno’s dominance of BN over everything else," Lim said.

For one, he added, Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong did not even get Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to apologise for scolding the Chinese as ungrateful, which Zahid did during the recent Teluk Intan by-election campaign.

Both MCA and Gerakan, he added, also failed to get Umno to renounce its support for the implementation of hudud, stop unilateral conversion to Islam by any one parent or even act against racists and extremists who bully and threaten non-Muslims or non-Malays.

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