Media statement (2) by Lim Kit Siang in Petaling Jaya on Tuesday, 3^rd August 2010: 

Will the four MCA Ministers ignore Muhyiddin's most improper and unwarranted "stern warning" and raise at Cabinet tomorrow the issue of Home Ministry withdrawing its appeal against the High Court judgment on the Allah controversy?

The Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Umno President Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin had acted completely out of turn in issuing a most improper and unwarranted "stern warning" to MCA to accept the decision of the government and should not trigger another debate on the word "Allah".

Does this mean that the MCA leadership, despite having four Ministers in Cabinet, are not allowed to raise in tomorrow's Cabinet meeting a proposal to ask the Ministers to take a policy decision to withdraw the Home Ministry's appeal against the Lau Bee Lan judgment of the Kuala Lumpur High Court in January which allowed the Catholic Church to use the word "Allah" in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its publication, Herald?

Such a proposal in tomorrow's Cabinet would be most timely, appropriate and fully in accord with the national interests in view of the admission by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein that his predecessor Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar should not have banned the word "Allah" from being used by the Catholic Church.

Are there two classes of Ministers - those who can raise issues in Cabinet and ask for policy decisions to be made or reviewed and the lower class of Ministers who cannot raise issues which are regarded as "sensitive" by the first class of Ministers?

Malaysians are entitled to know when this classification of Ministers into two categories - between those who can raise issues for decision by the Cabinet and others who cannot do so and must go along with what had been decided for them - got institutionalized, as Malaysians have been told that all Cabinet Ministers are equal in power and responsibility in the Cabinet with the Prime Minister being the primus inter pares?

Another example of such lopsidedness in the power equation among Cabinet Ministers and different Barisan Nasional component parties is still fresh in the people's mind - where the government decision to reject the legalization of football betting was made at the Umno Supreme Council and not in the Cabinet - and without consultation with the MCA or other BN component parties!

Will the four MCA Ministers ignore Muhyiddin's most improper and unwarranted "stern warning" and raise at Cabinet tomorrow the issue of Home Ministry withdrawing its appeal?

If there is a MCA Minister who has the courage of conviction to formally ask the Cabinet tomorrow to revisit the issue to resolve once and for all the prolonged and unnecessary "Allah" controversy in the interests of promoting inter-racial and inter-religious understanding and harmony, what would happen to him or her?

*Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Ipoh Timor