Malaysiakini and The Star reported the full list of the new Malaysian Government cabinet line up. This article questions the race distribution algorithm behind the choice of the cabinet members, and tries to understand the impact on Indians.
In the new cabinet, there were 2 main glaring changes: (1) Rafidah Aziz is out, and (2) MIC lost the Works Ministry. The first, I celebrated. The second, made me pause.
The only full Ministership for an Indian is given to S. Subramaniam to head Human Resources. The Deputy Ministerships went to SK Devamany (Prime Minister Dept), Saravanan (Federal Territories) and Kohillan Pilay from Gerakan (Plantation Industries and Commodities).
Now, just for the sake of statistics, since the government is all about statistics on Malays vs Chinese vs Indians, lets do some numbers. There are 71 total members of the cabinet (correct me if I am wrong here). Out of the 71, 34 are full Ministers, the rest are deputies. Out of the 34, there are 4 Chinese, and 1 Indian. And out of the total cabinet, there are 15 Chinese and 4 Indians. So that gives 21.1% Chinese, and 5.6% Indians in the cabinet. For full Ministerships, (the post which actually matters), 11.7% are Chinese, and 2.9% is Indian (singular). Going by the same argument the government uses for University intakes, 60% should be Malays, 20 something % should be Chinese, and 10% should be Indians, can the government make clear why the Chinese and Indians are glaringly lacking in the cabinet? Now and before?
The excuse that MIC and MCA lost badly doesn't make sense. This race distribution has almost always been the case in the BN government. Besides, even UMNO has lost drastically in the current elections. Furthermore, cabinet members can also be selected through Senatorships (people who have lost the election, or never took part), so couldn't the government find qualified Chinese and Indians in the cabinet, just to make up the numbers, and better still, improve their tarnished racial (UMNO?) bias reputation?
Whatever. I just wanted to do some statistics here simply because I had a little too much time in my hands, besides really really being curious to know what is the algorithm behind the cabinet membership. Can someone clarify?
Now, in lots of statistical methods, weights are given to the data, to represent the importance of each data. Take Human Resources (skills) versus Works Ministry (toll). If your priority is in $$$, which Ministry will you choose? Duh. So that leaves Indians with a percentage approaching ZERO.
So what is the impact on Indians in general?
Besides making those Indians in MIC feel dejected, NOTHING.
This is because, in a polarized, race based coalition government, Indians are represented by MIC, Chinese by MCA and Malays by UMNO. So the following deduction is applied:
If UMNO is the defender of Malay rights only,
And if the Prime Minister is the head of UMNO,
The Prime Minister defends Malay rights only.
If Indians have problems, like if their village doesn't have electricity, temples are being demolished, no schools in their area, etc, they are required to see the MIC head, and not the PM. This was slyly, and implicitly (if not explicitly) admitted by our great ex-PM himself, Tun Dr Mahathir (EITHER you get Indian support OR Malay support, remember?).
So Indians are expected to see S. Subramaniam next, when Samy Vellu leaves. So what has changed? Besides making Subra less richer, NOTHING.
courtesy of tides of change
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