KUCHING – What does the recent cabinet reshuffle mean in terms of (a) Adenan Satem’s come-back to the cabinet, (b) Fatimah Abdullah’s promotion to full-fledged minister and (c) the appointment of Tan Joo Phoi, the chairman of Padawan Municipal Council as assistant minister?
The appointment of Adenan Satem, State Assemblyman for Tanjong Datu, as special advisor to Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud in a cabinet reshuffle on 25 March 2010 has sparked interests among the public that Adenan can be the man who is likely to replace Taib as PBB president and Chief Minister of Sarawak.
With Adenan coming back to join the administration, the public are asking: is Adenan the man who will finally take over from Taib?
He was once tipped to replace Taib, but fell out of favour with the chief minister in 2006 and since then he has been put on cold storage.
In the past Taib has eyed a number of PBB leaders who should take over from him; names such as Bujang Haji Ulis, Abang Abu Bakar, Dr. Sulaiman Daud, Effendi Norwawi and Adenan Satem are still fresh on the minds of the members. But one after the other of them has fallen by the road side.
“But now Adenan is back and it appears that Taib is grooming him to take over,” said Voon, State Assemblyman for Batu Lintang.
He had held various portfolios in the State administration including Land Development (1987-1992), Social Development (1992-1998). In 2004, he left the State cabinet and joined the Federal Cabinet as Natural Resources and Environment minister, but resigned in 2006.
Apart from Adenan, there are other senior leaders who have an equal chance to replace Taib. For example Alfred Jabu Anak Numpang, deputy president (1), Abang Johari bin Tun Openg, deputy president (11), Awang Tengah Ali Hassan, senior vice president.
“Any one of them has been mentioned by members of the party as well as the public as Taib’s possible successor. And don’t under rate Alfred Jabu,” said one of his supporters.
In fact Jabu’s supporters have been promoting him in their blogs as the next chief minister of Sarawak.
“No one can deny that Jabu has all the experience and expertise,” they said.
It is little doubt that Abang Johari who holds a MBA degree from a British university is also in line to the most powerful chief minister’s post. He has shown to be a very effective and capable minister.
Awang Tengah’s supporters have also been going around projecting him as a possible successor to Taib.
“The pressure on Taib to look for a successor has now become very urgent not only because of his health, but also because of huge stakes in the Sarawak Corridor Renewal Energy (SCORE), the 12 dams that are going to be built, the aluminum plant and the infrastructures. All these are worth billions of ringgit,” said a political observer.
With Adenan now joining the race, there are four potential candidates whom Taib can choose from.
“He must be the one Taib can trust to undertake all these projects and to help protect his family’s businesses,” the observer said.
Fatimah’s promotion is something to do with the recent PBB triennial delegates conference where she was soundly defeated in the contest for the Bumiputra wing of the PBB supreme council.
As a Taib loyalist and hard working too, Fatimah deserved to be promoted. But then, PBB has now more ministers in the cabinet- starting from Taib (Chief Minister,Minister of Finance and Minister of Planning and Resource managment), Jabu (deputy chief minister and minister of modernization of agriculture), Abang Johari (Minister of Housing and Industrial Development), Awang Tengah (minister of public utilities and second minister of planning and resource management), Michael Manyin (minister of infrastructure development), Fatimah Abdullah (minister in the chief minister’s department) and Adenan (minister without portfolio in charge of information and broadcasting).
(PBB has eight ministers), SUPP has two (George Chan, deputy chief minister and Wong Soon Koh, environment and public health minister), SPDP and PRS each has one minister (William Mawan, minister of social development and urbanisation and James Masing, minister of land development respectively).
Taib also appointed Tan Joo Phoi as assistant minister in charge of environmental matters connected to dam construction in Limbang, Baram, Baleh and Murum.
According to Dominique Ng, a PKR Sarawak adviser, by promoting Tan, Taib is trying to appease long outstanding grouses of SUPP that Taib owes them that post.
Secondly, he said Tan’s appointment may open the way for PBB to take over Padawan Municipal Council.
“It is a classic case of killing two birds with one stone. What a well targeted stone!” said Ng.
But one may ask why SPDP and PRS are not involved in the reshuffle such as increasing the number of ministerial posts or assistant ministerial posts?
But I have heard that Taib will only give a post of political secretary to each of the two parties, and I further heard that he will only accept women as political secretaries this time. – The Broken Shield
Source: www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com
The appointment of Adenan Satem, State Assemblyman for Tanjong Datu, as special advisor to Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud in a cabinet reshuffle on 25 March 2010 has sparked interests among the public that Adenan can be the man who is likely to replace Taib as PBB president and Chief Minister of Sarawak.
With Adenan coming back to join the administration, the public are asking: is Adenan the man who will finally take over from Taib?
He was once tipped to replace Taib, but fell out of favour with the chief minister in 2006 and since then he has been put on cold storage.
In the past Taib has eyed a number of PBB leaders who should take over from him; names such as Bujang Haji Ulis, Abang Abu Bakar, Dr. Sulaiman Daud, Effendi Norwawi and Adenan Satem are still fresh on the minds of the members. But one after the other of them has fallen by the road side.
“But now Adenan is back and it appears that Taib is grooming him to take over,” said Voon, State Assemblyman for Batu Lintang.
He had held various portfolios in the State administration including Land Development (1987-1992), Social Development (1992-1998). In 2004, he left the State cabinet and joined the Federal Cabinet as Natural Resources and Environment minister, but resigned in 2006.
Apart from Adenan, there are other senior leaders who have an equal chance to replace Taib. For example Alfred Jabu Anak Numpang, deputy president (1), Abang Johari bin Tun Openg, deputy president (11), Awang Tengah Ali Hassan, senior vice president.
“Any one of them has been mentioned by members of the party as well as the public as Taib’s possible successor. And don’t under rate Alfred Jabu,” said one of his supporters.
In fact Jabu’s supporters have been promoting him in their blogs as the next chief minister of Sarawak.
“No one can deny that Jabu has all the experience and expertise,” they said.
It is little doubt that Abang Johari who holds a MBA degree from a British university is also in line to the most powerful chief minister’s post. He has shown to be a very effective and capable minister.
Awang Tengah’s supporters have also been going around projecting him as a possible successor to Taib.
“The pressure on Taib to look for a successor has now become very urgent not only because of his health, but also because of huge stakes in the Sarawak Corridor Renewal Energy (SCORE), the 12 dams that are going to be built, the aluminum plant and the infrastructures. All these are worth billions of ringgit,” said a political observer.
With Adenan now joining the race, there are four potential candidates whom Taib can choose from.
“He must be the one Taib can trust to undertake all these projects and to help protect his family’s businesses,” the observer said.
Fatimah’s promotion is something to do with the recent PBB triennial delegates conference where she was soundly defeated in the contest for the Bumiputra wing of the PBB supreme council.
As a Taib loyalist and hard working too, Fatimah deserved to be promoted. But then, PBB has now more ministers in the cabinet- starting from Taib (Chief Minister,Minister of Finance and Minister of Planning and Resource managment), Jabu (deputy chief minister and minister of modernization of agriculture), Abang Johari (Minister of Housing and Industrial Development), Awang Tengah (minister of public utilities and second minister of planning and resource management), Michael Manyin (minister of infrastructure development), Fatimah Abdullah (minister in the chief minister’s department) and Adenan (minister without portfolio in charge of information and broadcasting).
(PBB has eight ministers), SUPP has two (George Chan, deputy chief minister and Wong Soon Koh, environment and public health minister), SPDP and PRS each has one minister (William Mawan, minister of social development and urbanisation and James Masing, minister of land development respectively).
Taib also appointed Tan Joo Phoi as assistant minister in charge of environmental matters connected to dam construction in Limbang, Baram, Baleh and Murum.
According to Dominique Ng, a PKR Sarawak adviser, by promoting Tan, Taib is trying to appease long outstanding grouses of SUPP that Taib owes them that post.
Secondly, he said Tan’s appointment may open the way for PBB to take over Padawan Municipal Council.
“It is a classic case of killing two birds with one stone. What a well targeted stone!” said Ng.
But one may ask why SPDP and PRS are not involved in the reshuffle such as increasing the number of ministerial posts or assistant ministerial posts?
But I have heard that Taib will only give a post of political secretary to each of the two parties, and I further heard that he will only accept women as political secretaries this time. – The Broken Shield
Source: www.thebrokenshield.blogspot.com
