THE Sarawak government says there is no necessity to appoint an acting head of state even though the Yang di-Pertua Negeri, Abdul Taib Mahmud, is ill. 

The 87-year-old Taib, a government statement read today, was “taken ill while out of the country”, but not incapacitated. 

The Sarawak government statement, signed by the Deputy Minister in the Sarawak Premier’s Office Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali, said the governor was “in communication with the state government and able to discharge his official and constitutional duties”. 

He is currently recuperating, she added. 

“The government is regularly informed of his medical status and the state government’s further actions will be guided by the state constitution and the interests of the state,” she said. 

There has been wide speculation over the governor’s ill health on social media and Astana has even lodged police reports against those who claimed he had died. 

Taib is the state’s seventh governor and has been in office since March 2014. – August 1, 2023.