Dr Mahathir Mohamad now says he’s happy with his Cabinet.
The prime minister has decided to give his cabinet more time to prove itself rather than risk making changes that could turn out badly.
“I’ve reshuffled before. When I resigned, that was a reshuffle. I handed over to someone else and see what happened,” he said at a press conference in South Korea yesterday.
This is after the prime minister announced last week that changes were in store for his cabinet after consultation with the Pakatan Harapan leadership.
He had said then that a cabinet reshuffle would take place in due course in the absence of opposition from the coalition leaders.
He appeared to have had second thoughts yesterday.
Asked whether he was satisfied with the cabinet, he said he was.
“For the time being, yes (I’m satisfied). I’ve changed people in the past and they were worse, not better.”
He said he knew best whether the ministers were performing because they reported to him.
“They don’t know, but I know because they report to me (and) I know what they’re doing,” he said, referring to those who had called for the cabinet to be changed following PH’s humiliating by-election defeat in Tg Piai.
“(But) other people (are saying) ‘Oi, this is terrible, that is bad, wear black shoes and so on,” he said.
Dr Mahathir disagreed, saying the ministers deserved more time.
“Give them a chance until they show they are really useless, then we kick them out,” he said.
On a separate matter, Dr Mahathir lamented that it was difficult to do business properly in Malaysia as there was too much interference.
He claimed there were attempts to break up Petronas to make it smaller.
“There is too much politicking, too much interference. We cannot do business properly.”