KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 — DAP’s Lim Guan Eng has chastised PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang for saying there are fewer Muslims in the unity government than previous governments.
The MP for Bagan questioned Hadi's statement when he said that 98 per cent of the turnout during the 15th general elections were non-Muslims while only 68 per cent of voters were Muslims.
“This is false. The actual overall turnout for the election was 74 per cent. Researcher Bridget Welsh had contradicted Hadi by stating that Malays had the best voter turnout amongst all races at 79 per cent.
“Out of the 148 MPs supporting the unity government, more than half or 77 are Muslim MPs, dispelling the false narrative that the unity government is dominated by non-Muslim MPs,” Lim said.
Two weeks ago, Hadi decried that the unity government consisted of more non-Muslims than Muslims. In a Facebook post, he said there are 50 non-Muslims and 31 Muslims MPs.
He said calling it a unity government was misleading.
Hadi said the unity government does not have an opposition or the opposition is too small like a mosquito.
Lim, however, rebuked this statement by stating that the 77 Muslim MPs in the unity government contrast with the 72 out of 74 Perikatan Nasional (PN) MPs who are Muslims.
“In other words, there are more Muslim MPs in the unity government than the opposition PN. And yet, Hadi continues with falsehoods to project extremist sentiments to corral the Muslim votes without any regard whatsoever for non-Muslims in Malaysia.
“Malaysia belongs to all citizens, including non-Muslims. For Hadi to continue to exclude non-Muslims is not only wrong but also opposed to the royal command of the King to respect diversity and tolerance in our multi-racial society,” he added.
Lim claimed Hadi was trying to sabotage and undermine the unity government led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim by predicting that the unity government will collapse soon.
