Umno won’t push for snap polls if Covid situation is not good, says Tajuddin

Umno is not desperate enough to push for a snap election, including in August, if the Covid-19 situation is not good, the party’s election director Tajuddin Abdul Rahman says.

He said the party places the interest of the people first and does not only chase positions to the detriment of public health.

“If there are still high Covid-19 numbers in August, definitely we will not push for GE15 to be called. Umno leaders are not brainless. We don’t just want to chase or be hungry for positions.

“We take note of the Covid-19 situation. We just hope that Parliament will be dissolved in August if the situation allows. But if the cases are high, numbering in the thousands, we will reconsider about the right time to hold the GE.

“We will do it when the time comes. How to cross the bridge if we haven’t arrived yet? We have to abide by the Covid-19 situation,” the Pasir Salak MP said at an event in his constituency today.

in January, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was reported as saying the party was confident that the Election Commission (EC) would set SOPs if a snap election was called.

He said more than 30 countries, including the US, had held general elections even though they had to contend with the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the Umno general assembly in March, Umno had demanded that GE15 be held after the emergency period ends on Aug 1 or at an earlier date if the emergency is terminated earlier.

Umno, the lynchpin of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, had also stated that BN would withdraw its support for the ruling Perikatan Nasional government when the emergency ends and go it alone in GE15.

The current term of Parliament ends in 2023.

The country has seen a surge in COvid-19 cases of late with 4,519 new cases and 25 deaths reported today. This brings cumulative cases to 436,944 while the death toll stands at 1,657.