Patriot slams Perkasa for outdated race-based thinking

PETALING JAYA: Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaan has expressed their astonishment at Perkasa's call for the new finance minister post not to be given to a non-Malay, adding that the days of race-based politicking are now over under the newly formed government.
Patriot president, Brig-Gen (rtd) Datuk Mohamed Arshad Raji called for Perkasa's "race-based, stereotype thinking" to be the last of such statements.
The reason behind Perkasa's rejection of a non-Malay finance minister is because Malay interest under the various Malay/Muslim organisations under the ministry may be jeopardized.
"Patriot would like to give a friendly reminder to Perkasa that this is a new Malaysia and the vast majority has voted for this change.
"The decades of race-based politicking, divide and rule, weaponised race and religion as tools to sow distrust and hatred, stereotyping of race and group to be hated as enemies, are now gone and buried," he said in a statement.
Patriot also threw their support behind Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng citing that he has taken care of the Malay interest as Chief Minister of Penang.
"Lim Guan Eng has proven himself very capable of administering Penang, including taking care of the Malay/Muslim interest in the state," he said.
Mohamed Arshad also pointed out that the new government under Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has a formidable task ahead of them in dealing with the crippling debt and the state of the country's economy left behind by the former Barisan Nasional government, stating that the outlook of the future looks bleak.
"Our Prime Minister and the new government have formidable tasks ahead. A humongous external debt needs to be settled. As at end 2017, our national external debt stood at RM883 billion. That has not taken into consideration the syndicated loans and the loans guaranteed by our government. If so, the debt is widely believed to be around RM1 trillion.
"In addition, 1MDB has a debt amounting to US$3.5 billion. The debt to GDP ratio is close to the threshold of 55%. The outlook does not look good for our country," he said.
He called on all Malaysians to band together and "put on our patriotic cap" to stand behind and work with the current government under Mahathir's leadership.
"Let us think of ourselves as Malaysians first," he added.