KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – The King of Malaysia approved on Tuesday a coronavirus emergency that will suspend parliament at least until August and suspend any bid to seek a general election in a political postponement for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin .
Muhyiddin assured citizens in a televised speech that the emergency “was not a military coup and the curfew will not be applied”. He said his civilian government will remain in charge during the emergency, which will last until August 1 or earlier, depending on the situation.
The emergency declaration came as a surprise just a day before millions of people in Malaysia’s largest city, Kuala Lumpur, in the administrative capital Putrajaya and in five high-risk states were again nearly blocked for two weeks.
It also comes amid threats by the United Malays National Organization, the largest party in the governing coalition, to withdraw Muhyiddin’s support to force an early general election. Many at UMNO are unhappy that the party is second to Muhyiddin’s Malaysian party.
Muhyiddin said the national parliament and state legislatures would be suspended and no elections would be allowed during the emergency. He promised to call general elections as soon as the crisis eases and it is safe to hold polls.
Oh Hey Sun, a senior researcher at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said that most people can understand the need for motion brakes, but an emergency statement seemed overblown, as it is unclear how this could help slow the spread of the virus.
“It is very clearly a political movement on the side of Muhyiddin to anticipate the political challenges of both its rivals in its coalition of government and the opposition,” he said.
Malaysia last declared an emergency in 1969, after bloody racial riots that killed hundreds of people. The king, who can declare a state of emergency that allows the country to be governed by decrees that cannot be challenged in court, had rejected Muhyiddin’s request in October to declare the emergency.
King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah said at the time that the existing laws were sufficient to stop the spread of the virus. But in a palace statement on Tuesday, the monarch said he took public security and the country’s best interests into account when giving his consent after meeting with Muhyiddin on Monday night.
The king said he was concerned that the pandemic had reached a critical level and, at the same time, some parts of the country are struggling with floods that left thousands homeless.
Virus cases in Malaysia grew from just over 15,000 three months ago to 138,224, including 555 deaths, in a new outbreak triggered by a local election.
Muhyiddin, in announcing the blockade on Monday, warned that the country’s health care system was at a “breaking point”. He said that daily coronavirus cases, which have consistently breached 2,000 in the past few weeks, could jump to 8,000 by the end of May, if nothing is done. The health ministry also said it identified the first case of a highly contagious UK variant in the country.
Separately, Interior Minister Hamzah Zainuddin has become the third minister in days to test positive for the virus, his office said on Tuesday.
Under Wednesday’s renewed restrictions, social gatherings and interstate travel are prohibited and movement is limited within a radius of 10 kilometers (6 miles), similar to a national blockade in March 2020. However, certain manufacturing sectors , construction, services, trade and distribution and plantations will be able to operate under strict guidelines.
Muhyiddin assured investors that “Malaysia is open for business”.
“This period of emergency will give us the much needed calm and stability, as well as allowing us to focus on economic recovery and regeneration,” he said.
Muhyiddin came to power in March, after instigating the collapse of the reformist alliance that won the 2018 elections and joined the opposition to form a Malaysian-centered government. But his government is shaken by a tenuous majority in Parliament.
Josef Benedict, a researcher with the human rights group CIVICUS Monitor, said the emergency appeared to be another attempt by Muhyiddin to “hold power, block elections and remove parliamentary oversight” instead of seriously addressing the pandemic.
“A dark day for democracy,” he tweeted.