Where is your Shadow Cabinet to prove your ability in governance? This is the question which is usually demanded by leaders of the Barisan Nasional (BN) to challenge the Opposition front Pakatan Rakyat (Pakatan) to prove their ability to work together (PKR, DAP and PAS) to govern this nation should they were to takeover Putrajaya after the 13th general elections (GE13).
First of all, let us all ask the BN leaders and ourselves before we jump into some sort of conclusion or being influenced by what is being mentioned by all those BN leaders. Are the institution of an Official Opposition Front Bench and the establishment of a Shadow Cabinet being recognized in our nation? Does the Federal Constitution states that such institutions for the Opposition must be established? Or are there any provisions in any laws in this country which stated that the Shadow Cabinet would be recognized and shall work equally with the government of the day to provide various check and balance?
The answers to the above questions and highlights are No. There are not even a single provision within any laws or the Federal Constitution in this country that allows the Official Opposition Front Bench to be recognized and the institutionalization of a Shadow Cabinet to provide checks on the government of the day.
In this case, are those BN leaders really sincere in wanting the Shadow Cabinet to be established at the Opposition side? Are those BN leaders aware that there are no provisions in any law nor the Federal Constitution that could recognize the Opposition's institution within the parliamentary and governance system in this country? If these BN leaders are well aware of the current situation and yet still talk cheap on this subject, we would regard their words as a mere politics of hate and to discredit their opponents as much as possible. In fact they are not sincere at all when talking about democracy in our nation.
And when Pakatan has decided to reveal the kind of Opposition Front Bench Committees which consist of three to four representatives (PKR, DAP and PAS) in each portfolios to oversee their counterparts in the Putrajaya administration, these BN leaders immediately attack the Pakatan leadership on their line-up by accusing them of disunity within the opposition coalition and the later also could not agree on the allocation of the cabinet portfolios to their component party representatives.
So, why are the BN leaders picking at the Pakatan leadership on the question of Shadow Cabinet when they knew that a proper institution for the Opposition bench has never been exist at all via any law or the Federal Constitution.
Just look at how the opposition parties in other countries work. We can look at the clear examples in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Thailand, Japan and United Kingdom. In these countries, the opposition parties elected to their respective national legislations are recognized as Official Opposition or Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. In this status, the members of the Opposition bench in these countries are given due recognition equally to that of the government of the day. The Leader of the Opposition in these countries sits and stands on the same status with that of the Prime Minister of the sitting government and as an Opposition leader, he or she is authorized to officially establish the Shadow Cabinet to provide check and balance on the government of the day's administrations, policies and implementations.
Asides being officially recognized, the Shadow Cabinet in these countries are also being allocated a portion of the government funding in order to allow the shadow cabinet ministers and their team to work on various research work, public reviews, to have offices within their establishment and to seek many kinds of cooperation with the government ministries, departments and agencies to check and view on approvals, projects, policies and implementations which has been carried out by the government and their ministers.
We would like to ask the BN leaders, do we have all those facilities here for the Official Opposition in Malaysia? First of all, only the position of the Opposition Leader is being recognized and there are no mention that his Shadow Cabinet would also be recognize as an official status equal to that of the BN government ministries. Apart from this, Opposition Leader is only given a small token of allowance, there the fact that is there are even no allocation being provided to the Opposition members of parliament (MP).
The annual allocation are instead channel to the Fake MPs (defeated BN candidates of the currently Opposition-held constituencies) who are functioning as Constituency Coordinators working under the direct jurisdiction of the Implementation and Coordination Unit (ICU) of the Prime Minister's Department.
So, since the Oppostion MPs are being systematically denied their annual allocations and grants by the BN government, how can we all expect an unrecognized institution of Shadow Cabinet to exist and function effectively like their counterparts in other countries?
In fact, having the Opposition Front Bench Committees which consist of three to four representatives in each cabinet portfolios are already some kind of initiatives being carried out by the Pakatan leadership knowing that they will not be given any funding or allocation by the government to carry out their duties and responsibilities for the people and our nation. In doing this they will have to depend on donations from our people and other well wishers in order to get their jobs done.
Besides, Pakatan component parties have also resort to establishing their own public-funded think tank institutes in order to support their MPs and state assemblymen in carrying out their policy research and reviews. The privately owned think tanks established are the Institut Rakyat (PKR), Research for Social Advancement (DAP) and the Pusat Penyelidikan PAS (PAS).
We are pushing this buck back to the ruling BN. Where is the legitimacy of the Opposition bench in the parliament? Are there any equal recognition for the Opposition bench in this country? If you are sincere in wanting the Opposition bench to have an upright Shadow Cabinet, why are you not initiating any measures to amend the Federal Constitution or to enact any proper laws to provide due recognition to the Opposition bench and to allow them to enjoy the various annual allocations and grants for their constituencies?
For what you have been doing onto the Opposition, do you think this is real democracy? Are there any parliamentary democracy in the parliament itself? Are the Opposition MPs being provided with sufficient facilities to allow them to carry out their responsibilities as MPs and representatives of our people?
If the BN leaders couldn't do anything to improve the democracy of this institution, they should then cease all their empty talks immediately.
