No pressure for quick elections, says Umno man

 

Umno vice-president Mahdzir Khalid said priority must be given to dealing with Covid-19 and the floods.

JOHOR BAHRU: Umno is not applying pressure for an early general election, but only when the Covid-19 pandemic has subsided to a low number of cases, Umno vice-president Mahdzir Khalid said today.

He said the welfare of the people in facing the pandemic and the floods in some states were the priority and must be resolved first, rather than the general election.

He said that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had indicated before that a general election should take place early, after taking into account the margin between the government and the opposition as shown by the vote for the 2021 federal budget.

“But wth the Covid-19 situation currently at a critical level, we (Umno) ask that the next general election be held when the infection cases have reached a low level; we are not stressing that the elections be held now,” he told reporters here.

“Currently, Johor and Pahang and to a certain extent, Terengganu and Kelantan, are being hit by floods,” he said.

“Let’s talk rationally, it’s not because of politics that we say we want to hold the general election (soon). The people are watching the behaviour of politicians. So, let’s look at the Covid-19 situation and at whatever disaster first, and we need to resolve issues faced by the people first, then only we go to the polls.”

Mahdzir, who is chairman of Tenaga Nasional Bhd, said this after visiting the Senibong undersea cable main sub-station in Permas Jaya today.

Umno politicians have been applying pressure on the PPBM-led Perikatan Nasional coalition and have threatened to bring down the PN government by withdrawing parliamentary support.

The coalition has a slim majority in the Dewan Rakyat. Yesterday, an Umno backbench MP announced he was withdrawing support for Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister. Muhyiddin, president of PPBM, is head of the PN coalition whose hold on power rests on the support of Umno MPs.

Prior to this, Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan had said that Umno divisional meetings had urged that a general election be held before the end of the first quarter of this year in order to obtain a new mandate from the people.

In response to the political manoeuvring, there have been calls for priority to be given to efforts in controlling the Covid-19 outbreak and the current flood situation. - FMT