Malaysia cabinet keeps old guard - BBC News

By Jonathan Kent
BBC, Kuala Lumpur

The Malaysian prime minister has reshuffled his cabinet following his ruling coalition's overwhelming victory in last Sunday's general election.

However, Abdullah Badawi has not made the sweeping changes widely expected.

Mr Abdullah promised Malaysians change and a clean government. Opposition leaders have described the appointments as flawed.

It was expected that the new prime minister would remove ministers close to his predecessor Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Dr Mahathir is blamed by many for the rise of cronyism and sleaze. But many of the old faces remain.

Malaysia's ministers for international trade, for entrepreneur development and for public works have all found themselves embroiled in scandal, but all have kept their positions.

Mr Abdullah said all were clean. Most other senior cabinet posts remain unchanged; nor is Mr Abdullah delegating much of his own heavy workload.

Although he has enlarged the cabinet and created new ministries, the prime minister is keeping his finance portfolio and half of his home ministry responsibilities.

[More at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3574267.stm]

Malaysia election chief urged to quit - AFP

Pressure is mounting on Malaysia’s election commission chief Abd Al-Rashid Abd Al-Rahman and his entire team to quit over his handling of the polls which gave the government a landslide victory.

A local watchdog, the Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections, said Sunday’s election was badly managed and the worst ever held since independence in 1957 and should be nullified.

Khairul Anuar, secretary of the watchdog, said on Thursday around 100 volunteers travelled nationwide to observe the election process.

Prime Minister Abd Allah Ahmad Badawi’s ruling National Front won a landslide victory against the Islamic Party (PAS).

Opposition parties had said there were irregularities in the electoral roll that kept thousands of voters from the ballot box.

The Election Commission (EC) was forced to extend voting by two hours in central Selangor state after discrepancies in the rolls saw names of many voters missing from the lists.

[More at http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=2710]