Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has urged the rakyat to decide whether they support racists in BN or the opposition who define themselves as Malaysians.

He described the purpose of the rally by 50,000 odd red shirt protesters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, as truly different compared to the principles fought by the opposition.

He said while the red shirts proudly proclaimed they were racists, hurling racial slurs at the Chinese community and non-Malay reporters, the opposition, who joined Bersih defined themselves as Malaysians.

The red shirt rally was held to counter Bersih’s mammoth gathering on Aug 29 and 30 which called for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to quit over alleged financial scandals involving the 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion donations in his private bank accounts, which were deposited before the 2013 national polls.

Observers point out that the rally was more of a show of condemnation against DAP and its Chinese dominance than about being pro-Najib, although the prime minister declared his support for the protesters, saying he was humbled by the turn-out yesterday.

“We joined the Bersih rally to free Malaysia from corruption, but they declared themselves racist to cover up issues of corruption,” he said at a press conference in Komtar today.

“It is now up to the rakyat to decide whether they want to support those who say openly they are racist and do not care about corruption or those who are Malaysians and are fighting against corruption,” he added.

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