Malaysia's Health Ministry Recommends No Election For Now

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), Oct 28 (Bernama) -- Malaysian Ministry of Health (MoH) has recommended that no election be held, for the time being, said its director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah. However, he said, if the election could not be avoided, in following the Federal Constitution, it would hold a discussion with the Election Commission (EC) to look into different means of conducting the election. “(Firstly), no cross-border and no cross-district (travel), and no ‘balik kampung’ for the election. Secondly, no (mass) gatherings, and thirdly, no house-to-house visits. These are the three main issues that we need to discuss with the EC, and whether we can implement the use of postal votes and so on. We can continue to discuss with the EC to improve the situation. “As far as MOH is concerned, we only give recommendations. If it cannot be avoided, you still have to do the election, under the Constitution, then we have to look into the SOP (standard operating procedure) on how we can conduct the election and minimise infection. “Even though the SOP is available, more importantly, is compliance with the SOP. I think we have seen and learned this from Sabah (election). We hope we don’t need to repeat the consequences of an election in other states,” he said at a press conference on the update of COVID-19 at the ministry, here, Tuesday. Earlier, Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government would discuss with the EC to set a tighter SOP for the Batu Sapi parliamentary by-election on Dec 5, to ensure the people’s health would not be compromised when they go out to vote in the by-election. Ismail Sabri also said that the government was not empowered to disallow the holding of any election as the matter was under the jurisdiction of the EC. The Batu Sapi seat in east Malaysian state Sabah fell vacant following the death of its Member of Parliament, Liew Vui Keong of Parti Warisan Sabah (a political party), on Oct 2. The EC has set Nov 23 for nomination and Dec 1 for early voting for the by-election. Batu Sapi has 32,962 voters, including 672 army and 1,138 police personnel. -- BERNAMA