Gerakan chief says comments twisted, feels like an idiot

comments     YS Tong     Published     Updated

Gerakan president Dr Lim Keng Yaik today slammed local dailies for making him feel like an "idiot" by misinterpreting his comments on the much-debated proposal to teach Science and Mathematics in English.

"Chinese newspapers gave the impression that I was against (the proposal), Malay newspapers said that I was for it, and English newspapers suggested that I was an opportunist and chauvinist.

"You want to sell newspapers, it's fine, but not at my expense. People must be saying now that Keng Yaik is a mad doctor," he said.

The Gerakan leader, who is also primary industries minister, was speaking at a press conference after opening a forum entitled 'Education for the K-Economy' organised by the party-financed Socio-Economic Development and Research Institute (Sedar) in Kuala Lumpur.

Describing the coverage of his statements as "heart-sickening", Lim said: "We tried to take a simple non-racial approach to push down all racial sentiments. Even then, it is digested in different ways [by the newspapers] until I can't recognise it anymore.

"Don't take it out of context. You'll make me feel like an idiot, and I do feel like an idiot now," he said.

The minister said he was disappointed with the increasingly less room for public discussion and debate on issues these days.

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