THE Health Ministry (MOH) will abide by the cabinet’s decision on the Malacca state election, minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

The ministry has presented its views on holding the polls in light of the Covid-19 situation, but the cabinet also has to consider legal and constitutional issues, he said.

“The Health Ministry presented its views in the Covid-19 pandemic management committee meeting yesterday.

“We will discuss again in tomorrow’s cabinet meeting,” he told reporters at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital today.

The ministry will heed the decision of the cabinet and will draw up the standard operating procedure if the election is to be held.

An election has to be held in Malacca within the next two months following the dissolution of the state legislative assembly two days ago.

This came about after four assemblymen withdrew their support for Chief Minister Sulaiman Md Ali. 

However, there have been calls for a state of emergency to be declared instead, so that the election can be suspended in view of the Covid-19 situation.

Malacca is recording 56.9 infections for every 1,000 people, according to the Health Ministry’s data on the CovidNow website. It has been reporting new cases daily of between 200 and over 300 in the last two weeks.

The state’s vaccination rate as of October 6 is 88.6% of the adult population and 64.7% by total population. – October 7, 2021.