KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 — Malaysians must continue to reject the “dangerous ideas” of racists and religious extremists by supporting the rights of minorities to celebrate their religious events such as the holy festival of Thaipusam, Lim Guan Eng said today.

The Penang chief minister said it is important that the country continues to celebrate the annual festival, “as an endorsement of moderation” amid the recent spate of racial and religious extremist posturing against the freedoms and rights of minorities.

“Further celebrating Thaipusam also demonstrates that all Malaysians, Muslim and non-Muslim, Malay and non-Malay support the fundamental right of freedom of religion,” he said in his Thaipusam message.

Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general, noted that minorities must also realise that they can only raise their standing in society and protect their economic rights by working with their fellow Malaysians in upholding the principles of democratic right, rule of law and integrity against corruption.

He said democratic rights and rule of law are important pillars of the Federal Constitution and Malaysian way of life, but continue to be undermined by issues such as the decades-old ban on local council elections.

Lim regretted that opponents of the third vote – who count top politicians among their ranks – remain “ignorant of history, logic, reason and wisdom” by claiming that it is unable to guarantee justice, undemocratic and could lead to racial unrest not unlike the May 13, 1969 race riots.

He stressed that this leaves Malaysia among the few countries in the world that do not have local council polls, while at the same time being among the countries that are unable to deal with corruption.

Lim claimed that the country had lost some RM1.4 trillion in illicit outflows over a decade spanning 2003 and 2013, citing findings by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity.

The poor level of integrity among the country’s ruling class has come at a high cost for Malaysians as evident from the high household indebtedness of 87.1 per cent of gross domestic product as at September 2014, ranked the highest in Asia by the World Bank.

“Only when we stop looking at our problems and solutions through the prism of race or religion, but through the prism of principles and policies, can we be part of the solution and not part of the problem,” he said.

Local council elections has been at the centre of the latest spat between Pakatan Rakyat partners DAP and PAS.

The Islamist party has accused its coalition partner of unilaterally seeking to restore the third vote, in an apparent retaliation to DAP’s unyielding attacks on PAS over its ambition to enforce hudud – a strict Islamic penal code.

The third vote was suspended in 1965 because of the Indonesian Confrontation and then-prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman promised the Dewan Rakyat that local elections would be restored once the Confrontation was over. They were never brought back.