Six sworn in Muhyiddin’s new-look senate
SIX new senators were sworn into the Malaysian Lpper House on Tuesday, allowing them m to be inducted into the Cabinet announced by Prime Minister Muhyiddin iddin Yassin on Monday.
The new senators included uded former CIMB chief executive utive officer Tengku Zafrul Tengku ngku
Abdul Aziz, who is the new finance minister, and Federal deral Territories mufti Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri, who is s the de-facto Minister in charge rge of Islamic Affairs.
This was not the first time the Malaysian government ment is appointing a non-politiitician to become a senator or before inducting him as s a Cabinet minister.
The most prominent example was former second finance minister Nor Mohamed Yakcop. He served for six years in the Cabinet as a senator before running for election in
2008 to continue serving as minister in the Prime Minister’s
D e - p a r t - ment in charge of the Economic Planning Unit.
Under the Malaysian legislative system, all Bills passed by MPs in the Lower House or Dewan Rakyat, must generally be approved by parliamentarians in the Upper House or Dewan Negara.
Of the maximum of 70 senators that can be appointed in the Upper House, 26 are elected by the 13 state assemblies, with two senators for each state. T h e other 44 senators are appointed by the Malaysian King with advice from the government of the day.
The other four men sworn in on Tuesday have also been appointed deputy ministers in various ministries.
Two senators were from the Malaysian Chinese Association.
L im Ba n Hong is t he new Deput y Minister for I nter nat iona l Trade a nd Indust r y a nd Mah Hang Soon is Deput y Educat ion Minister 1.
The other t wo senators are Barisan Nasional’s executive secretar y Ahmad Masrizal Muhammad who is ta k ing up the post of Deputy Env ironment Minister, and Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal as Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports.
The six senators took their oath in front of Upper House president SA Vigneswaran.