COMMENT | What's the ideal size of a cabinet?

COMMENT | About a decade ago, I suggested to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim that should he become prime minister, he should be brave enough to scale down the size of the federal cabinet.

I told him such is possible as the Federal Constitution has put the matter within the prerogatives of a sitting prime minister. The civil service on the other hand is beyond his reach as its position is more entrenched in Federal Constitution.

On top of that, civil service is predominantly Malay and given the political landscape now any attempt to reform the civil service would instantly become a backlash.

With that in mind, it was indeed a delight to hear him saying in Tambun, Perak last week that he would trim down the size of the federal cabinet, at present widely seen as too big and indeed a bloated one.

Before we go further, it is perhaps necessary to take note of the nature of the federal government which in general consists of members of the administration - namely the elected politicians who sit in the cabinet as ministers and deputy ministers or parliamentary secretaries - and what is termed as the public service, generally called the civil servants.

Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s administration has 31 ministers and 38 deputy ministers. Technically, it is those 31 ministers who actually form the government as they sit in the cabinet: the 38 deputy ministers do not.

It was during Tunku Abdul Rahman’s administration (1957-70) that the amendments to the Federal Constitution were made to allow the creation of deputy ministers and parliamentary secretary posts to assist ministers.

Interestingly enough, the Federal Constitution does not contain any provision for a deputy prime minister. The practice of appointing a deputy prime minister was discontinued after Muhyiddin Yassin became the eighth prime minister following the Sheraton Move in March 2020. He instead came up with the notion of a senior minister which also does not have any basis in the Federal Constitution, our basic and supreme law.

Be that as it may how small is a small cabinet? What is the ideal size of cabinet for a country with 33 million population like Malaysia?

Admittedly, the Constitution is silent on that. In fact, the size is left to the prime minister to determine, unlike in the states where it is provided that the state cabinet - namely the executive council - cannot be fewer than four members but not more than 10. In short, there is a limit that the menteri besar and chief minister have to observe.

Westminster models

That notwithstanding perhaps one could get some clues from more developed Westminster models, particularly the United Kingdom as its prototype.

When Conservative Boris Johnson assumed the premiership, his 2019 cabinet had 33 members. British population at the time stood at 68.7 million which means a cabinet member serves around 2.1 million people.

The ratio was much better during Tony Blair's premiership as he had 24 members sitting in his cabinet. The population when his Labour party won the landslide in 1997 was 58.3 million: the ratio of a minister to population is thus about 1:2.4 million.

During Tunku Abdul Rahman’s administration, the federal cabinet had 13 full members. The population of Malaya in 1961 was 8.4 million which roughly means that the ratio was 1:646, 000 people.

The cabinet virtually started to grow bigger during his successor Abdul Razak Hussein. The latter had 19 ministers in 1974 when the population was estimated at 10.8 million, resulting in this ratio: 1:540,000 people.

Under the third prime minister Hussein Onn, cabinet size went up to 21 but the ratio actually went down to 1:614,000 which is about the same level as that of Tunku Abdul Rahman's premiership.

The ratio was kept at about the same level when Dr Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister in 1981. In the 1982 cabinet, he had 24 ministers when the country’s population stood at 14.5 million. The ratio during the Mahathir administration was 1:604,000 people.

The cabinet size during Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration remains the biggest in history: he had 36 full ministers sitting in his cabinet. But the ratio is the best as it went up to 1:758,000. When he was succeeded by Najib Abdul Razak, the ratio was even better: 1 to 993,000, almost a million. Abdullah assumed the premiership in late 2003 while Najib succeeded Abdullah in 2009.

When Mahathir became prime minister again through Pakatan Harapan in 2018, he reduced the size of the federal cabinet to 28. The ratio got better too, standing at 1:1.13 million approximately.

But things got worse under Muhyiddin. The size went up to 32 and the ratio stood at around 1:1.1 million. It got worse under his successor Ismail Sabri, who has had 31 full ministers in his cabinet and the ratio took a tumble to 1: 1.0 million.

It is clear all the reasons why Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri have had such a big cabinet: partly to keep their governments safe, free from threats of pulling the support etc. We now have the anti-hopping law in place, something that would address the problems faced by the two governments in the post-Sheraton Move years.

But whether or not we would be able to see smaller and learner governments eventually would depend on the political will, and the commitment to a smaller government which would be good news to the taxpayers.

Is Anwar courageous enough to go down that lane? Only time will tell when his time eventually comes.

AZIZ BARI is a former law professor and opposition leader in the outgoing Perak state assembly. He has published book and articles on the cabinet.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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