PETALING JAYA: Lim Guan Eng has warned that a back-door government led by Umno and PAS could lead to dire consequences for Malaysians, particularly the non-Malays and non-Muslims.

The DAP secretary-general said this “unholy alliance” would only lead to non-Muslims and non-Malays’ fundamental rights, as enshrined under the Federal Constitution, being extinguished.

He said that among other things, they might not be allowed to hold ministerial positions in the Cabinet, while vernacular schools also risked being shut down.

Lim went on to suggest that an Umno-PAS administration could lead to a situation where non-Muslims can no longer gather for religious prayers, while their products and businesses would also be boycotted.

“This back-door approach to forming a new government is a dangerous escalation of undemocratic tactics to overthrow the present federal government and betray the clear and unequivocal mandate given by the people to vote in Pakatan Harapan (PH).

“Worse, going by the racist and extremist religious philosophy of both Umno and PAS in preaching discrimination, threats, lies and hatred against non-Malays and non-Muslims, this new back-door government may lead to (grave consequences),” he said in a statement today.

Lim was responding to Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s statement on Sunday that the party and its allies could become the nation’s third force with 91 seats among them.

Barisan Nasional (BN) now has 40 seats while PAS has 18. Both parties are counting on support from at least 19 MPs from Sarawak and nine from Sabah, with “five more” that could also join the pack.

While not mentioning any names, the Umno man alluded to the first and second forces being those behind Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and those belonging to his designated successor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s camp, respectively.

Lim added that a new Umno-PAS federal government could also potentially lead to more corruption and incompetent economic management to a point where salaries of civil servants could not be paid.

“Both BN and PAS state that it is permissible to lie or not publicly declare their assets. Corruption is not important when PAS turned a blind eye to the financial scandals of the previous BN and Umno government, involving sums of RM150 billion.

“Poor economic management is also unimportant to the point that the PAS government of Kelantan is not embarrassed that it cannot pay the salaries of its employees and have to borrow from the federal government to do so,” he added.