First of all, I would like congratulate Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for his appointment as the country's premier and I sincerely wish his cabinet ministers a successful mission to help the prime minister towards implementing the changes and reforms that were promised to the rakyat.

I would like to refer to the recent media whereby the Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was reported as saying that Pakatan Rakyat's decision to form a shadow cabinet is aimed to toppling the ruling BN government.

Whilst there could or could not be truth in the deputy premier's assessment, a shadow cabinet is nothing new in many of the established Commonwealth countries.

As a matter of fact, countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia have their respective shadow cabinet ministers being named as the ‘Loyal Opposition' because a shadow cabinet functions as a check and balance on the current ruling government, but not overthrowing it.

A shadow cabinet should not be construed as disputing the sovereign's right to the throne and therefore the legitimacy of the ruling government of the day.

The existence of a shadow cabinet in many countries is to have an alternative cabinet to the ruling government's, whose members shadow or mark each individual member of the government ministers.

In Westminster for example, it is the shadow cabinet's responsibility to pass criticism on the current British government and its respective legislation, as well as offer alternative policies.

It is a healthy form of check and balance for the ruling government and this would effectively and subsequently raise the performance benchmark of the government, which has just embarked on the key performance indices (KPI) initiative.

In the spirit of getting rid of the ‘government knows best' policy as declared by the prime minister last week in his message to young Malaysians, this could have been the best example of where the government is ‘walking the talk'.

Regardless of whether the country is moving to a two-party political system or otherwise, the existence of a shadow cabinet and its ‘shadow ministers' would play a very effective opposition role to the ruling government.

At the end of the day, the rakyat will be able to tap the benefits of both the government and the opposition, both working hard towards establishing a united country and a prosperous economy.