Five senators appointed as one minister and four deputy ministers

Senator P. Waythamoorthy has been appointed as a Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (National Unity and Social Well-being).

PETALING JAYA: Five newly-appointed senators have been made a minister and four deputy ministers.

The five are P. Waythamoorthy as Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (National Unity and Social Well-being); Liew Chin Tong as Deputy Defence Minister; Dr Mohd Radzi Md Jidin as Deputy Economic Affairs Minister; Datuk Raja Kamarul Bahrin Raja Ahmad as Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister as well as Marzuki Yahya as Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister.

In an earlier interview, Liew had said that Pakatan Harapan's appointed senators would be a minority in the Dewan Negara as Barisan Nasional still holds a majority of the seats in the upper house.

On July 2, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that three more ministers would be appointed after they had been sworn in as senators.

A total of eight new Senators were sworn in at 2pm at the Dewan Negara on Tuesday (July 17).