‘Racist’ post against Malaysian Chinese general gets rebuke – from Islamist PAS

Malaysia’s Islamist party has decried a “racist” statement by one of its leaders, who has been widely criticised for including a picture of the country’s first ethnic Chinese three-star general in a social media post warning of the political rise of the nation’s largest minority group.

Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) grass roots leader Zaharudin Muhammad sparked outrage over a post on his Facebook page on Tuesday, in which he wrote a hypothetical news story of Malaysia welcoming its first ethnic Chinese prime minister, an incendiary idea to many in the Malay Muslim majority nation.

In his post, which included a picture of Johnny Lim Eng Seng, the commandant of the Malaysian Armed Forces Defence College, receiving his third star, Zaharudin said it was “not impossible” that a Chinese Malaysian becoming the country’s leader could be a reality in the coming decades.

PAS said it had nothing to do with Zaharudin’s post, stressing that it went against the party’s principle of upholding racial and religious diversity.

“Racism in any form or colour has no place in PAS, and is incompatible with the grand culture and aspirations of this country,” PAS Secretary General Takiyuddin Hassan said in a statement on Thursday.

Malaysia’s armed forces made a historic move on Monday when it promoted Lim to lieutenant-general, the highest rank ever achieved by an ethnic Chinese serviceman.

It was a significant milestone in the country’s military, which is dominated by the Malay-Muslim majority and has long struggled to attract Malaysians among the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities to sign up.