KUALA LUMPUR: Caretaker prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob must publicly explain his refusal to heed the Malaysian Meteorological Department’s (MetMalaysia) expert advice against holding a general election this year, said Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Lim Guan Eng.
This came after Mr Ismail Sabri said on Sunday (Nov 6) that the Election Commission (EC) has the right to postpone the 15th General Election (GE15) in the event that major floods which prevent people from voting occur.
Speaking while campaigning in his Bera constituency in Pahang, Mr Ismail Sabri said that the EC would call for meetings with related agencies to look for possible alternatives to proceeding with the election process in the event of floods.
“It is up to the EC to decide if it wants to stop the election,” he said as quoted by the Star.
“If major floods occur to the extent of preventing people from going out (to vote), then the EC will see if there are alternatives,” he added.
In his statement on Monday, Mr Lim said that Mr Ismail Sabri had no sense of shame for putting the country and the people through unnecessary suffering and endangering the people’s safety, merely to satisfy his party’s greed for political advantage by calling for an early general election.
Mr Lim added that Mr Ismail Sabri could have heeded MetMalaysia’s advice against holding early polls this year, so that resources could be fully focused on flood crisis management.
“There would be no necessity to waste time, energy and resources on the general election but focus fully on flood crisis management to avoid possible loss of lives and property,” he said.
Mr Lim emphasised that the potential floods is the reason why Pakatan Harapan (PH) decided not to dissolve the three state assemblies under its rule: Penang, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan, for the state polls to take place concurrently with the federal election.
In GE15, only the Barisan Nasional (BN)-led states of Perlis, Pahang, and Perak were dissolved for the federal and state elections to be held simultaneously.