PETALING JAYA: The war of words between the DAP on one side and Umno and PAS on the other continues to descend to new lows.
This time, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (pix) has, quite sarcastically, congratulated PAS for winning over the MCA and MIC “to support its extremist position”.
In what seems like a reminder to the MCA, Lim pointed out that PAS had now questioned the funding of vernacular schools to the extent of threatening to close them down.
Furthermore, he said, the MCA openly questioned his approval for funding of religious schools for Muslims.
He also said that if PAS was not willing to withdraw its “unconstitutional and seditious remarks” that non-Malays should not be appointed as ministers or that non-Muslims now controlled the federal government, it could not blame the non-Muslims and non-Malays from Peninsular Malaysia as well as Sabah and Sarawak to feel threatened.
“Their fundamental rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution, which have never been questioned, are now openly attacked by PAS and Umno,” he added in a statement.
PAS should know that like Umno, it received little or no support from non-Muslims and that MCA was just a little puppet of Umno, Lim said.
He said non-Muslims and non-Malays in Peninsular Malaysia as well as Sabah and Sarawak did not want the federal government to be run like Kelantan and Terengganu where there was minimal or no non-Muslim involvement.
“The non-Malay and non-Muslim community and religious bodies feel threatened. They are being made scapegoats by PAS and Umno for problems in Malaysia,” Lim said.
As far as PAS was concerned, he said, it was permissible to lie for the party, and that it was better to have a Muslim leader even if he was corrupt than to have a non-Muslim leader who was honest and competent.
Lim recalled that PAS was a moderate and compassionate party that believed in justice for all under the leadership of Datuk Seri Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat. Nik Aziz, who was the spiritual leader of the Islamist party and mentri besar of Kelantan, died in 2015.
“Under Nik Aziz, PAS saw non-Muslims as an ally against injustice and corruption but now an extremist PAS viewed them as a target,” he added.
