Media Statement by YB Kelvin Yii:
One of the questions I asked the Federal Government during my emergency motion is whether the Government is considering imposing a “short-term emergency again” on Sarawak to delay the election in view of the new threat of the Omicron Variant.
This is after the Senior Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein made a statement that “Efforts to transition to the endemic phase has been paused for a while as the government looks to find out more about the new Covid-19 variant..”
Even Dr Lam Sai Kit from Academy of Science Malaysia has expressed his concerns in saying that ” In Malaysia, the additional concern is the possible introduction of this variant into the country with the Sarawak Elections due next month”
So, a possible temporary short-term emergency may be beneficial for 2 main reasons:
(1) For Government to really monitor the spread of Omicron more closely and to take additional precautionary actions and measures.
While Omicron has not been officially detected in Malaysia, but in fact we are not doing enough genomic sequencing in our country to be able to conclusively say or identify whether this new variant has not breached our country’s borders just yet.
Based on data released, Malaysia’s genomic sequencing to detect the variant is abysmal. Malaysia has only sequenced 0.1% of Covid-19 cases the past 2 weeks, or only 1 per 1,000 cases. This is in comparison to other countries such as Denmark that has sequence 50%, or 1 per 2 cases, Sweden at 36.7%,the UK at 16.1%, Switzerland 11%, Australia 8% and many others.
We are even behind our neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia and other countries such as Mexico, Pakistan, India, Colombia and Brazil.
This is such a crucial metric in order to really have proper surveillance if any of the prevalence of such variant in our midst. Countries around the world are reporting on a daily basis new discovery of such variant and thus it is naïve to think it will not reach our shores, if it hasn’t already.
So before we fully understand the situation including the transmissibility, virulence and vaccine protection towards Omicron, it is maybe proper to be leaning on the conservative side and not introduce a possible unpredictable variable, ie a State-wide Election which may run the risk to be a super-spreader event.
(2) Even with the announcement by the Election Commission today on the gazettement of Undi18 on the 15th December 2021, the law will not apply for the upcoming Sarawak State Elections.
Then it could be beneficial for the election to be instead held during a time where our young voters can participate and vote in the upcoming Sarawak State Elections.
The GPS government has always said they do not fear the youth vote and said that this issue should not be politicised, but if they are truly sincere, they will take the extra step to make sure they are inclusive to them and not rush this election before the full implementation of UNDi18. All their claims on youth are mere rhetoric if they are deliberately depriving our youth of their fundamental right to vote.
It is important to give Sarawak youths the voice to vote in Sarawak election, and the future of the state and country should also be a responsibility of young Sarawakians and Malaysians
We actually had the time as the declaration of Emergency in Sarawak was only supposed to end in February 2022. That will give us enough time to evaluate and monitor even the full impact of Covid-19 during the Melaka State Elections and the emergence of this new variant of concern before deciding on having an election of our own.
This will also give time for the Election Commission to come up with innovative ways and reforms including absentee voting or postal voting for the upcoming State Elections.
I am in no way trying to prevent democracy, nor am I not wanting to have an election, but in order for democracy to thrive by encouraging greater participation in the democratic process, the people need to feel safe to participate and that no one get deliberately left behind.
Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen
MP Bandar Kuching
