Media statement by Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, 4^th November 2011: 

Has Muhyiddin performed a "coup" against Najib and other non-UMNO Cabinet Ministers and parties?

Has the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin done a "coup" against the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and other non-UMNO Cabinet Ministers and parties including MCA, MIC and Gerakan in unilaterally and arbitrarily without Cabinet authority declaring as "final" the decision to discontinue the PPSMI policy on the teaching of mathematics and science in English and slamming shut the door of a review?

The Prime Minister had promised before the Sarawak polls in April this year that the government would consider using dual languages as the medium of instruction for mathematics and science in schools, and it is precisely because of such an undertaking that the leaders/Ministers from non-UMNO Barisan Nasional parties have come out publicly in support of the principle that parents should be given the option of deciding on continuing with PPSMI in selected schools.

Although Muhyiddin had dismissed calls from the top MCA and MIC leadership that the government allow schools the option to retain PPSMI, declaring that representatives from both MCA and MIC (which would include Gerakan) in the Cabinet had agreed to its abolition in 2009, the Deputy Prime Minister should explain why he had singly, uniaterally and arbitrarily overriden the powers of the Cabinet to review the 2009 decision - and whether Muhyiddin had the full approval and agreement of Najib to make such a "final" decision on PPSMI when the Prime Minister is away from the country?

In any event, if the non-UMNO Cabinet Ministers and parties, such as MCA, MIC, Gerakan and the Sarawak and Sabah Barisan Nasional parties, want to have a full and thorough review of the Cabinet's 2009 decision on PPSMI so as to allow parents the option to continue with the PPSMI in certain schools, who is Muhyiddin to singly, unilaterally and arbitrarily bar them from doing so?

Has the Deputy Prime Minister any such powers to subject the non-UMNO BN Ministers to such control when even the Prime Minister would not have such powers?

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