PETALING JAYA: Following Pakatan Harapan’s win on the 2018 normal election, Dr Mahathir Mohamad gave the finance portfolio to Lim Guan Eng “to appease DAP”, but he stripped the ministry of management over government-linked corporations (GLCs) to protect Malay hegemony, a brand new book reveals.
In Shattered Hopes, writer Romen Bose mentioned Mahathir “was having a tough time with events like DAP and with sure requests, similar to one to make Lim Kit Siang speaker of parliament.”
“However, they (officers near Mahathir) claimed that Mahathir managed to ‘purchase’ the get together’s loyalty by giving them key Cabinet posts and appointing Guan Eng as finance minister.”
Mahathir knew he needed to work with DAP, Bose mentioned, but that didn’t imply he would give “vital energy” to the Chinese-led get together.
“Aides mentioned the previous man’s perception in Malay hegemony wouldn’t enable him to cede any actual energy to non-Malays.”
“So, though Guan Eng was given the finance portfolio, Mahathir stripped the ministry of management (over) the highly effective and profitable GLC sector, which was then given to (economics affairs minister) Azmin Ali,” Bose mentioned.
Khazanah National and Permodalan Nasional Berhad had been subsequently positioned beneath the Prime Minister’s Department, with Mahathir making himself Khazanah chairman. All different GLCs had been put beneath the purview of Azmin’s ministry, Bose added.
As a outcome, Guan Eng had restricted management over his personal ministry, as Mahathir would later “confess” in an interview with Malaysiakini, Bose added.
The book quotes Mahathir as telling his interviewer: “I feel you’re insulting me when you assume DAP can management me. I used to be the one who had management. Lim couldn’t merely carry issues into the Cabinet with out me trying into whether or not (they had been) acceptable or not.”
What was the CEP actually for?
Bose additionally questioned the organising of the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP), fashioned instantly after Pakatan Harapan got here to energy in 2018.
Citing a information report, Bose famous that the CEP was not a creature of statute nor was it a physique of enquiry beneath the Commissions of Enquiry Act 1950. Neither was it a choose committee answerable to parliament, the writer famous.
As such, was the CEP an unlawful physique, Bose requested, and what was it actually for?
“There was no report on what the CEP had accomplished or achieved (and) there was no strategy to inform how profitable they had been in serving to to implement PH1.0’s financial pledges and manifesto.”
The CEP comprised former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhar Aziz, ex-Petronas CEO Hassan Marican, enterprise tycoon Robert Kuok and economist Jomo Kwame Sundram.
Shattered Hopes gives an insider’s perspective on the aftermath of the 2018 elections, when Pakatan Harapan ended Barisan Nasional’s six many years in energy.
The book goes on sale from June 30.
