PARTI Sarawak Bersatu wants the state polls to be held only when the state is “100% safe” from Covid-19.

The opposition party’s potential pick for the Stakan seat, George Young Siricod Jr, said the question of whether to have the elections is not rocket science, it is in fact very simple.

“It is either the elections are completely safe or not safe.”

He asked for indications that elections will be safe or otherwise.

“We have not entered phase 4 (of the national recovery plan) and officially, Sarawak has not been declared an endemic state,” he said.

Sarawak currently is in phase 3 of the recovery plan, while the state assembly automatically dissolved when Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah lifted the state of emergency on November 3.

As such, elections will have to be called within 60 days of the dissolution.

The opposition want to stall the polls, hoping to take advantage of the Undi18 generation, who will only be eligible on January 1, plus people accounted for by automatic voter registration (AVR).

On Sunday, Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah gave two reasons why the ruling Gabungan Parti Sarawak government wants to have elections this month.

Uggah said it was to avoid the monsoon season, expected in January, and the possible emergence of new Covid-19 variants, particularly the Delta Plus variant.

He said the decision to have the elections this month was reached “after much consultation and deliberation with the authorities”.

The SARS-CoV-2 trackers in the state – the Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM) of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak – in a report to the state disaster management committee at the end of last month, reported three Delta sub-variants have been detected from cases sampled from mid-September to October 8.

They are the AY.24 with one case each detected in Kuching, Miri and Sibu; one case the AY.33 strain was detected in Bintulu; one case of the AY.34 strain in Samarahan and two in Bintulu; and two cases of the AY.37 strain in Kuching.

The Delta AY.23 variant is currently the dominant strain in Sarawak, while driving the current outbreak in Singapore.

Uggah, who also chairs the state disaster committee, said the state’s rainy season is expected in January and February.

He said holding the elections during the monsoon season could be fraught with risks as widespread flooding might take place.

He said government resources would be stretched very thin if they are to handle the elections and flooding at the same time.

He added that the government could not gamble on waiting for the Covid-19 situation to get “even better” to have the elections.

He also pointed out how vaccination had brought down the number of daily cases from 4,709 on September 15 to the current 400 to 500.

The infections, he said, were due to the highly infectious Delta variant.

“There there is no telling if a new, even more dangerous variant may emerge in the future,” he added.

On the opposite side of the debate, the youth wing of the Federation of Chinese Associations in Kuching, Samarahan and Serian say Sarawakians are looking forward to the elections.

The association’s youth treasurer Aaron Tay said that was the public feedback he had received.

Sarawakians are hoping the elections will be held safely and a new government elected smoothly without a major Covid-19 outbreak or untoward incidents, he added. – November 10, 2021.