KOTA KINABALU, Sept 8 — Sabah’s upcoming stall polls will go ahead as planned, said Election Commission chairman Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh as authorities keep close tabs on the new Covid-19 clusters in Sabah’s east coast districts of Tawau and Lahad Datu.

He said authorities will maintain the same strict standard operating procedures as the Slim by-election.

"We will monitor the developments. But for now, everything will go on as planned,” he said when contacted by Malay Mail.

He added that the new prison cluster in Benteng, Lahad Datu is under control and would not be a threat to the voting process.

The state poll begins this Saturday with nomination day while polling is on September 26.

Health authorities yesterday said that the Sabah cluster now has 66 confirmed cases, with 50 of them detected in Lahad Datu and 16 from Tawau.

The cluster was then found to have spread to the Tawau prison some 150km away after several inmates with travel history to the Lahad Datu police headquarters also tested positive for Covid-19.

Most of the cases were among prisoners and originated from two undocumented migrants who were under detention at the Lahad Datu police headquarters’ lock-up.

The only cases that are not among prisoners is a 45-year-old prison officer in Tawau and his one-year-old nephew.