GEORGE TOWN, Jan 16 — Pakatan Harapan (PH) should stop trying to divide the people along racial lines, Penang Gerakan chairman Oh Tong Keong said.

He accused Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad of engaging in racial politics when the latter suggested that the Chinese community was rich while the Malays remained poor.

"Another PH leader, the prime minister-in-waiting Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, also resorted to making racial statements by stating that the country needed a Bumiputra leader to protect Malay rights,” he said in a statement today.

The Gerakan deputy president expressed his disappointment over such behavior from the two top PH leaders.

"We do not wish to see this power struggle between Tun M and Anwar Ibrahim leading to the current government and party leaders issuing racial statements and causing inter-racial relations to be tense,” he said.

He said if both Dr Mahathir and Anwar are leaders for Malaysians, they should stop using racial politics to gain support.

"They should be focusing on improving the standard of living and tackling the increasing living costs that the people are facing,” he said.

Oh said the global economy is on a downturn and this has also affected the different sectors in Malaysia.

He said the public now has less disposable income while the cost of living continued to increase.

"Instead of finding ways to help the people overcome this, PH leaders are playing racial politics and pandering to a single race,” he said.

He added that the government should be the one to care for the well-being of all races and not only one race.

He called on voters in the upcoming by-elections to express their dissatisfaction against racial politics through their ballots.