THE standard operating procedure (SOP) for the 12th Sarawak state elections is in the final stage of being refined before it is submitted to the Election Commission (EC), Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said.

He said several strict measures were recommended through the SOP, taking into account the current situation with the emergence of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in the country.

“The SOP for the Sarawak state elections is almost ready. The ministry is refining one or two more things before we hand it over to the EC.

“Certainly, this latest development (on Omicron) is taken into account. We want to make sure that there is no infection in the state elections,” he told a press conference on the latest developments of Covid-19 in Putrajaya today.

Malaysia recorded the first case of the Omicron variant involving a South African student of a private university in Ipoh, who tested positive for the variant of concern on December 2 as a result of genomic sequencing.

The EC has set December 18 as polling day for the Sarawak state elections, with December 6 as nomination day. Early voting is on December 14. – Bernama, December 3, 2021.