PUTRAJAYA, May 9 — Opposition parties Umno and PAS have been warned today against continuing to manipulate ethno-religious issues just for their political interests.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad told the public that the move to smear Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) image is spearheaded by those who lost the general election and are afraid of facing the law for their crimes.

"The struggle allegedly to defend the Malays and Islam is merely just to protect those who robbed this country, hoping the government will fall and they won’t be held responsible for their sins and the ruin they cause.

"My advice is: Enough with manipulating racial and religious issues for political gains,” he told a keynote address here, earning rapturous applause from the crowd.

Dr Mahathir said Putrajaya has been falsely portrayed as a government that is kowtowing to non-Muslims and is allegedly attempting to demolish the monarchy.

"For these reasons, they’re uniting and the argument they hold is allegedly trying to defend the Malay rulers, the position of Malays and the sovereignty of Islam,” he added.

Last night, Dr Mahathir told an interview that criticisms against the PH government for not doing enough to protect the interests of the Malays and Islam are little more than deflection by "losing parties”.

He said both issues were the easiest things to use when criticising PH, as it allowed the Opposition to shift the focus away from its own mistakes.

In a group media interview earlier this week, Dr Mahathir had also admitted that PH still must tread lightly when it comes to ethnic and religious issues despite already being in power for a year.

The prime minister said the coalition’s fortunes after the shock general election victory last year could easily be reversed if one ethnic group feels sidelined, but conceded that it is just not possible for Putrajaya to please all sections of the country.