Saving lives is more important than political bickering, says Datuk Sebastian

suppadmin | August 17, 2021

Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP) is deeply concerned about the political turmoil currently happening in the country especially during this time when fighting COVID-19 should be our primary priority.

We are fighting an unseen enemy that takes hundreds of Malaysian lives every day. Saving lives is more important than anything, said Datuk Sebastian Ting, Secretary general of SUPP.

Ting said SUPP respected and supported Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin’s decision to resign after losing majority support of the members of Parliament and Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s decision to appoint Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin as interim prime minister till a new prime minister is chosen.

“However, we should instead focus our energy and time to deal with the COVID-19 threats as our frontliners and volunteers efforts have been stretched to the limits in this more than one and a half years of fighting the pandemic. Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) has been trying its utmost effort to curb the spread and making sure that we have sufficient vaccines for Sarawak to speed up our vaccination program ahead of all other states. However, this is still not enough as there are many individuals that completed their two doses still contracted the virus and risk of spreading it to others who are not vaccinated due to medical reasons. This is indeed worrisome thus we should put all priorities on the next step of action in fighting the epidemic and not fighting among ourselves,” he said.

Ting opinionated that the majority of the people do not want for the general election to be held at this time because it may cause even more cases, more deaths and more economic lockdowns in already dire straits and SUPP agreed with the wisdom of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong that holding the 15th General Election is not a good option when considering the safety of the people. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country is still very high, around 20,000 cases every day.

“We also agree with the statement made by Sarawak Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari that this is not the time to play politics but to focus on fighting the pandemic. Fortunately, Sarawak has a stable state government by GPS to tackle the outbreak and plan for the post COVID-19 economic recovery. Even though West Malaysia is caught in endless political turmoil, Sarawak is able to continue to focus on the fight against the epidemic. We have achieved good results in the COVID-19 vaccination program and topped the best compared to other states,” he pointed out.

Sarawakians in general, he added, hoped to see political turmoil in West Malaysia to be quickly resolved and the priority should be to reduce the number of confirmed cases and level the curve so that the people and businesses can return to their normal lives and revitalize the economy bringing the country back on track.

SUPP thanked Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin for his service for the past 17 months which is undeniably a difficult one due to the pandemic.