Police say called off MCA’s Wee, DAP’s Lim face-to-face debate to avoid disrupting the peace

JOHOR BARU, March 6 — The police said they will not permit any debates to be held throughout the Johor state election campaigning period, purportedly to prevent disrupting the peace in the state.

State police chief Datuk Kamarul Zaman Mamat said the police currently only allow political programmes in the form of talks.

“We will not allow any form of face-to-face debates. Please understand the current situation that is calm where all political parties are allowed to campaign peacefully.

“So we want to avoid something that can trigger disturbances and later disrupt the campaign for participating parties,” Kamarul Zaman told reporters at the Johor police headquarters here.

He was responding to the cancelled debate between MCA president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong and DAP’s secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

The debate had failed to obtain police permission as required by the Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the Johor state election published by the Election Commission and the National Security Council.

It was scheduled to take place today at the Tiong Hua Association Hall in Johor Baru at 2pm and was to debate on an issue regarding a Chinese vernacular school.

“We only allow talks and we do approve permits for such activities. In some cases, we can’t approve a particular programme due to the interest and welfare of the community in Johor,” he said.

Under the SOP, any political speeches, rallies or lectures can be held physically with some restrictions.

For the Johor state election period, the state police said they had approved a total of 1,411 permits for talks and campaigns since nomination day until yesterday.

However, six applications for political talks were rejected on grounds that it overlapped with another programme as well as the location that is too close to another rival party’s event.

Kamarul Zaman said throughout the state election period, a total of 806 officers and personnel from the Criminal Investigation Department have been deployed to monitor the situation.

He said police have so far received 152 reports and opened 10 investigation papers, among them which involved investigations according to Section 427 of the Penal Code, Section 269 of the Penal Code, Section 500 of the Penal Code, Section 323 of the Penal Code, Election Offenses Act 1954 and the Communications and Multimedia Act 1988.