KUCHING: The focus of the country now is on the wellbeing of its people and not about having a deputy prime ministers posts or not.
Political analyst Professor Datuk Mohd Fadzil Abdul Rahman said if a deputy prime minister’s (DPM) post was to be filled, then it should have been done a long time ago.
“The present government has decided to appoint senior ministers which to me, which is divided accordingly based on the partnership, is already good enough.
“Because when they start to appoint DPM, other partners (political parties) might also demand the same things,” he told New Sarawak Tribune when contacted.
Prof Fadzil was prompted for comments by BERSATU information chief Wan Saiful Wan Jan who had insisted that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob promised Perikatan Nasional (PN) the deputy prime minister’s post before his appointment as the prime minister last August.
He added before the formation of the Federal Cabinet, there have also been calls for the DPM post to be held from Sarawak and Sabah.
“Hence, I think it is not quite the right time for them to demand all that and of course when he (Wan Saiful) claimed that if was a promise by Ismail Sabri to appoint a DPM from BERSATU, it is just a promise.
“Even the manifesto, they are not able to execute it to some extent. It can be a promise but it depend so much on the scenario and the situation is not quite right,” he said.
He went on to say that before this it had been agreed upon that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will be appointed the next prime minister, but then it did not happen.
“At the same time, it is not conducive to do it (appoint DPM) now. At the moment, there are people from various parties asking for an election to be called as soon as possible.
“To me, I think even if they appoint someone from BERSATU now, it is not that conducive because you never know when is the election and it will be a very short one and if they think they want to do it this year, it will be very short for them to appoint someone from BERSATU to be the DPM,” he said.
Prof Fadzil, who is also Assistant Vice Chancellor (Leadership and Development) of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), said that the best is to wait for the next election to be called.
“From there, whoever gets the most majority can form up their own line up including the DPM post,” he said.
He stressed that this sort of issue should be set aside, and the focus now should be more towards the people.
“There are a lot of issues now, such as the price of chicken, eggs, oil and other matters related to the wellbeing of this country. So, let’s not talk too much about power struggles,” he said, while adding that he observed that since the last election, power struggles were never ending.
“What is most important is for them (leaders) to think of the way forward for this country rather than to talk about position and what not.
“It is not quite right for us to think about that because other countries, our neighbouring countries are progressing well. But, in Malaysia, we are still talking about power struggle,” said Prof Fadzil.
