PM to announce new cabinet at 12 noon

Mar 18, 08 10:46am
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will be announcing his new cabinet at 12 noon today.
The unveiling of the new cabinet, which will be carried live on television, will be made at the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya.
Abdullah's previous cabinet had a whopping 32 ministers, 39 deputy ministers and 20 parliamentary secretaries - 91 posts in all - with jobs handed out to many of the 14 race-based parties that make up the coalition.
The large cabinet had been criticised as unwieldy and wasteful, and there is speculation that some ministries could be merged now that there will be just 140 BN lawmakers, compared to 198 in the outgoing administration.
Abdullah has said that the new line-up will reflect the coalition's racial power-sharing concept and include all the communities - majority Muslim Malays and minority ethnic Chinese and Indians.
Will Khairy be appointed?
But observers have said he will have difficulty finding ethnic minority candidates to fill prominent posts, after the Chinese and Indian parties in the coalition were punished in the elections.
The only Indian cabinet minister in the outgoing administration, S Samy Vellu, lost his parliamentary seat, which he had held since 1974.
All eyes will also be on his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin, who was elected as a first-time member of parliament in the March 8 general elections.
Khairy, who is Umno deputy Youth chief, has been blamed by some quarters within the party for the unprecedented setback suffered by the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.