KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 — Lim Kit Siang called out the government led by leaders from both the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalitions today for what he described as their very bad management of the Covid-19 health crisis in the country.
The Opposition MP warned that the issue will be a hot button topic in the coming national election as leaders from both coalitions had failed to address their shortcomings when the chance was offered in the recent Melaka state election.
“The atrocious handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by the PN/BN governments was not addressed in the Melaka general election on Nov 20, but they will be the focal issues in the 15th General Election!” he said in a statement.
The Iskandar Puteri MP noted that while BN swept 21 out of the 28 seats in the Melaka state legislative assembly in the last election, it did not mean the coalition was guaranteed a similar victory in the national election.
To Lim, the government would be judged on the way it continued to manage the coronavirus situation in Malaysia, as well as corruption cases.
He noted a recent critique from Dr Milton Lum, past president of the Federation of Private Medical Associations and Malaysian Medical Association, highlighting a series of serious blunders in the country’s Covid-19 management that had contributed to the high death toll.
Data from the Health Ministry shows that the total number of Covid-19 deaths in Malaysia since the pandemic began stands at 30,147 as at midnight. This includes 6,096 who were dead on arrival at hospitals.
The Health Ministry also recorded 5,755 new Covid-19 infections yesterday, a slight increase from the day before, raising the cumulative cases to 2,602,835.
Lim said the recent figures have catapulted Malaysia to 20th position in the global ranking of countries with the most Covid-19 cases cumulatively as at November 18, compared to the 89th spot back in September.
“It is quite an achievement that in the last two months, we have not overtaken more countries.
“However, it is a failure of our Covid-19 pandemic strategy that other nations have not overtaken Malaysia's global ranking.
“Malaysia's deaths per million population is the highest in Asean, and the third highest in Asia,” the senior DAP politician said.
