WITH the alarming spike in COVID-19 cases in the recent weeks, it seems that Malaysians can kiss goodbye any hopes of the state of Emergency ending early, or for the Parliament to reconvene any time soon.
The country is already more than halfway into its nationwide state of Emergency which started on Jan 11. During this period, the national Parliament and state legislatures have been suspended, and no elections or by-elections will be held.
The Emergency will remain in force until Aug 1, or earlier if the number of daily positive COVID-19 cases can be brought under control and lowered effectively.
Alas, that didn’t happen. In fact, the situation got worse despite the Emergency, with the number of daily cases these days more than doubling what had been recorded during the early days of the Emergency.
With two months left until the deadline, this therefore begs the question: Will the state of Emergency be extended, or will it be lifted as planned, thus making way for elections to be called even as the pandemic continues to rage on?
The possibility of Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin extending the period of Emergency wouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, given the fact that the whole purpose of the Emergency decree was to give Muhyiddin’s administration more power to tackle the surge in COVID-19 cases in the first place.
But mind you, if the state of Emergency is extended, this would also solidify critics’ earlier claims that the Emergency was another bid by the embattled prime minister – whose Government is shaky with a razor-thin majority in Parliament – to stay in power rather than seriously addressing the pandemic (but this is a story for another day).
Considering the current COVID-19 situation in the country, the second option, which is for the Emergency to be lifted, wouldn’t be a smart move either.
Politicians from both sides of the political frontier would surely be eager to get back into the business of polls. With the surging number of cases as of late, this could possibly lead to another wave of infections in the country, and this is the last thing anyone would want.
With the Aug 1 deadline fast approaching, the Government is certainly running out of time when it comes to the state of Emergency. But whichever option they choose, the outcome, needless to say, wouldn’t be pretty. – June 3, 2021
Photo credit: PMO
