Vaccine rollout Feb 26 (kempen pilihanraya menyusul?)

The vaccines are here - Getaran pic

Why Muhyiddin is first vaccine taker - KJ

A piece of good news we've all been waiting for. Well. most of us, anyway; some Malaysians don't believe in the vaccine. Tahniah buat YB KJ dan sahabat-sahabat lain di dalam Kabinet yang bertungkuslumus mencari vaksin melawan Covid-19 buat kita semua. Hats off to the Prime Minister for agreeing to be a guinea pig; now nobody can make so much fuss about shorter quarantine periods for Cabinet ministers. For the record, if they ask me to be the first Malaysian journalist to get the vaccine, I'd be happy to. But other than in Sarawak (Sarawak journalists to be vaccinated under 1st phase of Covid-19 immunisation), Malaysian journalists are not part of the frontliners who will be vaccinated on Feb 26. The Muhyiddin Administration isn't really crazy about us the media. We're not sure why.

What we're sure about is this: starting Feb 26, Muhyiddin's election campaign begins in earnest. Starting that day, the numbers for Covid-19 cases will continue to fall drastically and then they will get the Agong to rescind the Emergency Order that has, among other things, suspended Parliament until August (subject to recommendations by a special committee). 

You've probably seen pictures circulated online about a political party's preparations for the next GE. I won't fall off my chair if the PM calls for general elections just after the Holy Ramadan in May.

 

p.s. Some political observers interpret changes in the media as a hint of an upcoming poll. We've heard that ownerships of Free Malaysia Today and TMI (The Malaysian Insight) are changing hands. Invariably, the new owners will be linked to some politicians, somehow, and soon one will notice changes in editorial leanings and affiliations. For those of us who know, we've known for a while that a lot of news portals haven't been doing well even before the pandemic and are fighting to stay alive. FMT and TMI, therefore, are the lucky ones, if you ask me. If there had been no buyers for these portals, they will close shop. They close shop, scores of journalists will lose jobs and join hundreds who have been retrenched since the first MCO. We can't have that.