KLANG, Jan 5 — Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister Datuk Dr Xavier Jayakumar today declined to comment on a purported letter that claimed Maszlee Malik’s abrupt resignation as education minister last week was coerced rather than voluntary.
Maszlee, who is Simpang Renggam MP, announced he was quitting the Cabinet on January 2 with effect from January 3, just under 20 months from his appointment on May 21, 2018.
“I don’t want to comment on that. I have no comment. I’ll leave it to the wisdom of the PM,” Dr Xavier said during a press conference after launching a tree planting programme in Taman Bandar Botanik here.
He was earlier asked to respond to a news report claiming Maszlee was forced to quit for disobeying Cabinet consensus on education policies in a purported letter written by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to the Simpang Renggam MP last month.
Online news outlet The Malaysian Insight claimed Maszlee was asked to quit as education minister due to his failure to heed Cabinet directives in a purported letter penned by Dr Mahathir to the former International Islamic University Malaysia lecturer.
According to the news portal, the 17-paragraph letter noted that Maszlee had particularly failed to follow advice on the jawi issue, free internet service for schools and free breakfast programme for pupils.
Malay Mail has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the purported letter.
Cabinet members follow the principle of collective responsibility. This means each minister is obliged to publicly support decisions jointly made in the Cabinet. As such, any who cannot abide by such decisions should resign.
Maszlee announced his resignation last Thursday in a news conference but did not give his reason, only saying his decision was made on the advice of the prime minister after an earlier meeting.
However, a source disclosed that Maszlee had received a letter from his party, Bersatu, “advising” him to vacate the post.
Following Maszlee’s announcement, Dr Mahathir said he has yet to decide on a replacement for the post and will announce his decision soon.
