PKR president and wife of jailed politician Anwar Ibrahim, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was sworn in as Permatang Pauh MP in Parliament and the Federal Opposition leader this morning, and has wasted no time in anouncing a key part of her new term: forming Pakatan Rakyat’s shadow cabinet to counter the Najib administration.
Dr Wan Azizah said such a shadow cabinet would carry out effective oversight on the management of the exectuive branch by the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition led by Prime Minister Najib Razak, and would strengthen Pakatan Rakyat’s objective of safeguarding the public’s interests.
“(As a start) Setting up a shadow Pakatan Rakyat Cabinet where each ministry will be represented by one MP from each party,” she said outside Parliament today, as quoted by The Malay Mail‘s Syed Jaymal Zahiid.
“The point is to strengthen check-and-balances to protect public interest.”
However, this plan was proposed once before, only to be scuttled before it could begin. Pakatan Rakyat had previously mooted the idea of a shadow cabinet, but the plan did not materialise due to infighting between Pakatan’s partner parties: PKR, DAP and PAS.
Probably keeping this in mind, Dr Wan Azizah also stated that mending the rifts between Pakatan’s component parties will be one of her top prioroties as Opposition leader, which will involve “heart-to-heart” talks with all coalition members in accordance with the agreements reached in the pact’s common policy framework.
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