Kuching MP warns against holding election before pandemic subsides

KUCHING: Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii cautions the Sarawak government against pushing for an early lifting of the Emergency to pave the way to hold the 12th state election.

The Democratic Action Party lawmaker said the Ministry of Health’s latest data had shown an increasing trend of hospitalisation of Covid-19 patients especially those from Category 3 to 5.

He said there were 442 hospital admissions in Sarawak as of Oct 20 and 16 per cent increase in the past seven days and the third highest after Selangor and Klang Valley.

“This increase is probably due to the vaccine’s waning effectiveness over time and the relaxation of more restrictions among the public.

“Based on data on government official platform, the average positive rate for past week is at 13.3 per cent which is much higher than WHO’s (World Health Organisation) recommendation of below five per cent, which means there is possibly much more positive cases that are not yet detected here in Sarawak,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Dr Yii said Sarawak cannot be complacent despite the high vaccinate rate.

According to him, if an election were to be held there will be high movement and congregation of people and the spread of the virus will increase.

“On top of that, Sarawak is still only in the early stages of administering booster dose to frontliners and high-risk communities especially in view of concerns of waning vaccine effectiveness over time based on real world data.

“That is why the main question is, why would the state government want a possible election especially since we are still under emergency until February 2022?” he said.

He felt that the government should ensure full implementation of Undi18 (lowering the voting age from 21 to 18) and Automatic Voters Registration (AVR) which is scheduled to be in December this year before calling the next state polls.

He said the government should focus on administering the booster dose to all vulnerable and high-risk groups in Sarawak to ensure they receive adequate protection.

He believed this will reduce hospitalisation and possible death especially among the elderly with comorbidities and those immuno-compromised.

“If we can cover this whole group by end of the year, they will be much better protected if the election were held next year.”

He said it is equally vital for the government to come up with necessary electoral reforms and proper standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure a safer election process including staggered voting, and more polling days to reduce congestion.

The Election Commission (EC), he asserted, must ensure that the entire election process is safe and in line with public health protocols.

He said the commission must review existing polling stations to ensure they are still suitable for use.

“In the last general election, several polling stations especially those in urban areas were packed with voters lining up for their turn.

“The EC should create new polling stations of voting streams to better manage the crowd during the election.

“Each voting stream in the polling stations must be properly ventilated to reduce the risk of airborne transmission,” he added.