First Covid-19 vaccine, then Sarawak polls, says think tank
PETALING JAYA: A think tank fears that the country’s healthcare system could collapse if the Sarawak state elections are held without a Covid-19 vaccine available.
Citing the recent Sabah election, Azrul Mohd Khalib, chief executive of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy said people should take the aftermath of the state polls as a valuable lesson.
“It was clear that the election caused the third wave of infection in the country,” he said at a webinar hosted by Bersih Sarawak today.
Despite implementing SOPs, he said politicians would still hold gatherings or visit potential voters at home for campaigning purposes.
“This is unavoidable as this is the way we hold elections. We don’t know how to hold it any differently,” he said.
Xavier Sim, the co-founder of REACH, an NGO for rural communities concurred with Azrul, saying that an election campaign, in the Malaysian context, is seen as an opportunity for politicians to give incentives in exchange for votes.
“In Sarawak, votes are seen as a form of transaction,” Sim said, adding that it would be hard to change the polls process.
Because of these challenges, Azrul urged for the state election to be postponed.
“There is no guarantee that a vaccine will be ready to be deployed anytime soon. The earliest is in June. If we still hold elections without the vaccine, the healthcare system will collapse,” he said.
However, political scientist Wong Chin Huat insisted Sarawak hold its state election as the current term of the state assembly would expire in a few months’ time.
“The CM (chief minister) needs to uphold our voting rights,” he said.
Wong proposed for the election commission (EC) to implement postal votes and early votes, especially for voters residing in Peninsular Malaysia.
Further, he also proposed for the election period to be prolonged to avoid overcrowding that could increase the risk of virus transmission.
This article first appeared in Free Malaysia Today on 26 November 2020.
