IT must be the election season, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said following protests by a local Muslim group over his attendance of buka puasa events.

He said for the last eight years he had been joining Muslims in buka puasa events and nobody had made an issue of it.

“On the ninth year, it has become a problem. Maybe it is because this is the election year. It must be election grandstanding,” he said in a press conference at Komtar today.

For two Fridays in a row, local Muslim group Jaringan Muslimin Pulau Pinang staged protests after prayers to warn Lim against attending buka puasa events.

Two weeks ago, the group demonstrated after Friday prayers outside the Simpang Enam mosque in George Town, declaring that Lim must convert before going for buka puasa events.

Last Friday, the same group held a similar protest outside the Abu Kader Mosque in Butterworth, threatening to protest outside mosques Lim visits for buka puasa events.

The group also alleged that the DAP-led state government blocked fatwas, an old claim the state religious committee and state mufti had refuted several times.

“It is up to them to decide if they want to follow. Everyone has the right to demonstrate peacefully.

“I have attended few buka puasa events since Ramadan started and they had been quite peaceful,” Lim said.

He also said Penang has always been peaceful and harmonious and added that that the state government sponsored some buka puasa events.

“Is it wrong to do so?” he asked.

The Penang Pakatan Harapan government is organising a buka puasa event in Permatang Pauh this Sunday, where all PH national leaders were invited to attend.

Permatang Pauh is the parliamentary seat of opposition leader and PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. – June 6, 2017.