NSTopinion: He wants a cabinet of peers and experts, instead of a cabinet of rent-seeking party interests.
This farcical “interim” grand coalition, crowded by Umno and Pas, was momentarily waltzing in fantasyland with giddy hopes that the power rudely wrested from them in 2018 would magically rematerialise. This after the emasculated government collapsed following Bersatu’s kick-in-the-teeth pullout from Pakatan Harapan.
The Mahathir Manoeuvre was earthshakingly consequential: in giving up his dominant positions stemming from a hapless corner , he gained more, if not virtually absolute, power. And at 4.45pm yesterday, Dr Mahathir confirmed his intent for a unity government on national TV, tantalisingly void of details and no allusion at all to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as his successor.
The idea of a Unity Cabinet that attracts the best, dare we say it, a team of rivals consisting of true intellectual/thinking scientists, technocrats and technicians, some not among party politicians, will be intriguing. The story goes that key ministers sat on legitimate SME project proposals, declining to exercise discretionary powers to approve them, preferring to pass the buck to the cabinet to the point of creating a huge cabinet paper backlog.
The pragmatism has its risks: the parties backing Dr Mahathir’s sweeping plan may recoil at being “ignored” or, heavens, putting up with sworn enemies in the cabinet.
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