According to an Indonesian media report, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s first official visit to Indonesia included learning about Indonesia’s COVID-19 mass vaccination exercise. Indonesia President Joko Widodo had launched the mass vaccination exercise last month by getting himself fully vaccinated.
Even though Indonesia has the highest number of COVID-19 infections in ASEAN, Malaysia in per capita terms is still the worst performing country in ASEAN. Apart from learning about how Indonesia was able to conduct the vaccination exercise earlier, Muhyiddin should also learn from Jokowi how he maintains religious harmony and race relations with mutual respect. Whilst there is still much to be done, President Jokowi has shown himself to be more tolerant and respectful than his predecessors, towards ethnic and religious minorities in Indonesia.
DAP regrets the stubborn refusal by the PN Federal government to allow Chinese New Year(CNY) celebrations and CNY reunion dinner for family members from different houses. It makes no sense to ban family reunion dinners for those living in the same district but in different houses. Unless the SOPs are reviewed and corrected, both PN and MCA might as well announce that CNY Reunion Dinner is banned in favour of only an ordinary dinner, since only members living in the same house can eat together.
And yet pasar malams with large crowds are permitted. Is the PN Federal government encouraging the Chinese community to conduct pasar malams during the CNY to enable family members to be together? For parents living alone, this will be a sad and lonely CNY celebration torn apart from their children and grandchildren even if they are living next door.
DAP reiterates our full support towards efforts by the Health Ministry and front-liners to combat and contain the alarming surge in COVID-19 cases. Unfortunately, our Cabinet Minister have failed our front-liners by failing to give sufficient support and pour resources, especially failing to fully implement the 3Ts of testing, tracing and treatment of all close contacts of COVID-19 positive patients.
Instead, the PN Federal government have cunningly used their failure to manage the public health crisis, by suspending Parliament to ensure their political survival. Without Parliament functioning, there is no more public accountability and transparency. Whilst the public can understand the need to impose the Movement Control Order(MCO), there must be no double-standards.
Defence Minister and head of the National Security Council (NSC) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri had claimed that the CNY SOPs had the endorsement of the Chinese community, with dozens of stakeholders and Chinese association were consulted and engaged by the NSC. Clearly PH was not consulted even though PH received more than 90% of the Chinese vote in the 2018 general election. MCA should therefore explain why they endorsed the ridiculous CNY SOPs.