Syntax error in PHP after upgrading to 5.4

I am getting the following error ever since I upgraded from PHP 5.2x or 5.3x (not sure which) to 5.4x:

syntax error, unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM, expecting T_VARIABLE

The following is the code that generates the error. Essentially I have a class to create SVG image with a static draw() method defined in a derived class and a static helper function drawPng() on the base class that converts the SVG to PNG using Imagick. The error is at the marked line.

static function drawPng($filename, $data, &$options=array()) {
    ob_start();
    static::draw($data, $options); // <-- Error occurs
    $svg = ob_get_clean();

    $im = new Imagick();
    if(!$im) die('Imagick not installed');

    $bg = (empty($options['background']) ? 'transparent' : $options['background']);
    $im->setBackgroundColor(new ImagickPixel($bg));
    $im->readImageBlob($svg);
    $im->setImageFormat('png');
    if($filename) $im->writeImage($filename);
    else echo $im->getImageBlob();
}

The code as shown above has worked until the upgrade. Thanks for the assistance.