Will Umno contest? Muhyiddin shakes his head

Umno's stand on the upcoming Penanti by-election continues to remain a mystery with Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin also refusing to shed any light.

Firstly, he said the party's political bureau which met this afternoon did not discuss the matter contrary to reports earlier that Penanti will be the top agenda.

"We did not discuss about that and there's no decision made," he said. And when asked what was discussed, he replied: "Why should we tell you?"

When pressed by journalists on whether the party will contest, the deputy premier merely shook his head without elaborating on whether it meant 'no comments' or 'no contest'.

Earlier, it was speculated that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who chaired the political bureau meeting, will announce the party's decision in Sabah tonight.

The political bureau’s decision could be crucial for the ruling coalition, as Najib has decided that having one by-election after another is a waste of public resources. Following this, he did not rule out the possibility of not contesting.

However, BN has been receiving mixed responses from the other component party leaders who argued that the opposition does not deserve an easy walkover.

The Penang seat fell vacant following the resignation of former deputy chief minister 1 Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin.

The state seat comes under the Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency, which is the PKR fortress of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

ISA does not affect Manoharan’s position

In an unrelated development, the deputy premier also played down Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) legal adviser M Manoharan’s plan to step down as Kota Alam Shah assemblyperson.

Muhyiddin said the security law which Manoharan has been detained under would not cause him to lose the state seat he won during the last general election.

“In legal terms, he will not lose his position (as an assemblyperson), although he is being detained under the ISA,” he said.

Muhyiddin also stressed that the country is now going through the “working phases” where all the elected representatives should start serving the public rather than “abusing democracy”.

“The people have voted the representatives, then they should be responsible (in serving the people),” he said.

However, Muhyiddin added that he was not in a position to answer whether Manoharan would be released in order to allow him to serve his constituents.

Last Saturday, Manoharan has mulled resigning from his Selangor state constituency following his frustration at not being able to serve the public physically after the March 8 general election.

Decision on English policy could take longer

On a different note, Muhyiddin, who is also the education minister, said the government might take a little longer before deciding the outcome of teaching maths and science in English.

According to him, this was due to his “dissatisfaction” with the number of studies being carried out by the various roundtable sessions the ministry has been organising.

“A lot of feedbacks need to be looked at and we are prepared to wait a little bit longer because whatever decision we have to make in this issue is going to be difficult,” said Muhyiddin.

Elaborating, he said that the extra time is needed so that the decision would not be a “flip-flop matter” in terms of administrating the English policy.

Apart from that, Muhyiddin said he will also welcome views from any groups.

“If the ideas they present are good, we can take them into account,” he said.

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